This Monday, June 21, the first National Drill was held in municipalities and mayors of Mexico City, State of Mexico, Oaxaca, Chiapas, Puebla and Michoacán.
The Government of Mexico, through the Secretariat of Security and Citizen Protection and the National Coordination of Civil Protection, convened the drill “with the purpose of promoting the culture of Civil Protection in the population and contributing to the strengthening of the reaction capacities of internal units and their brigades in the event of an emergency or disaster,” according to its official website.
The drill exercise was planned for 11:30 a.m., central time, under the hypothesis of a large-scale earthquake.
The general hypothesis raised was as follows: earthquake with magnitude of 8.1 C, at 11:30 in the morning, with a location of the epicenter 4 kilometers south of Papayo, Guerrero, and with a depth of 30 kilometers.
In the CDMX, it was announced that the seismic alert would be activated and the simulation would begin, and then activate the protocol of action of the Seismic Emergency Plan by detonating SMS messages.
Then it would begin the mobilization of the members of the Emergency Committee to the Crisis Room (C5) and the territorial deployment, as well as the exercise of work to extract victims in collapsed structures.
The capital’s government stressed that, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, those who participate in the drill will have to observe protective measures such as wearing blankets and maintain a healthy distance during the eviction of buildings.
Loudspeaker failures
After announcing the National Drill, users on social networks reported failures in the speakers of the C5, planned to issue the seismic alert.
As announced by the capital government, at 11:30 in the morning the seismic alert would be activated on 12,826 loudspeakers in Mexico City; however, it was reported that some did not sound, or that they were heard at a low volume, or that they presented a short-duration recording.
However, Claudia Sheinbaum, head of government, said in the report on the National Drill that 99% of the loudspeakers had worked during the Drill, which represents less than 200 speakers that did not sound.
Capital authorities encouraged the population to report anomalies to 911 or locatel. For its part, the National Seismological System recommended reporting audio failures on the page of the Unified System of Citizen Attention.
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