Several people had their eyes fixed on the sky as the Indian Air Force (IAF) demonstrated their disaster relief capabilities on the Shanghumughom beach on Thursday.
The demonstrations were held as part of ‘Samvedna,’ the first multilateral Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Relief (HADR) exercise conducted by the Southern Air Command in association with the Air Forces of Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Nepal, and the UAE, which got under way on March 12.
“The exercise provided a platform for the participating countries to share their experiences regarding how they undertake HADR. The first three days involved a table-top exercise in which the forces made presentations of their respective HADR exercises. They were aimed at ensuring better understanding and sharing of response procedures in various scenarios. Practical demonstrations are currently being organised in order to evolve a basic framework for conducting joint operations,” Group Captain S. Ramaswami, Station Commander of Air Force Station, Shanghumughom, said.
Bambi Bucket operation, an exercise employed to douse the wildfire that had ravaged the Karungani hills in Theni recently, was displayed. The Bambi Bucket, with a capacity of 4,900 litres, was attached to a Mi-17 V5 helicopter, and filled with water, before making the ‘drop’ on the ‘affected area’. The wet winching drill was conducted with Garud commandos and divers from the Indian Navy taking part in the mission to ‘rescue’ a person stranded in the sea. A demonstration of dropping food packets on inaccessible terrain was also organised.
Rescue operations
According to Wing Commander B. Prasanth, the special forces unit of the IAF had successfully rescued almost 20 stranded fishermen during Cyclone Ockhi. They were also able to rescue around 10 people stranded in the forest fire in Theni. The Garud Commando Force has been trained for war-time as well as disaster operations and is deployed for high-risk operations.
During the early hours of the day, the C-130J Hercules transport aircraft of the IAF and AN-32 transport aircraft of the Sri Lankan Air Force conducted a joint HADR exercise in the Arabian Sea off the coast of Agatti.
