The city is set to witness the biggest ever-coordinated mock drill on Wednesday afternoon. Preparedness of various agencies will be checked by creating simulated situations across the city involving schools, colleges, metro network, malls, markets, hospitals and road transport.

Many metro stations will be closed for half-an-hour and road traffic will be diverted in many areas of central, south and north Delhi as part of the exercise which is being conducted to test check Delhi’s disaster response mechanism in the event of an high intensity earthquake. Commuters in metro trains, buses and motorists are set to face inconvenience because of the mega mock drill to be held between 11 am and 2 pm.
“It will be first-of-its-kind mock drill in the entire country during which we will create a number of simulated situations like collapse of flyovers, cracks in metro pillars, damage to hospitals and collapse of residential buildings due to an earthquake measuring 7 on the Richter scale,” divisional commissioner (revenue) Vijay Dev told reporters here. The mega mock drill is part of a 2-month-long earthquake preparedness exercise launched by the Delhi Disaster Management Authority (DDMA) in cooperation with National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA).
“All concerned agencies, including DDMA, health department, Delhi Metro, police and transport department are part of the exercise which is being carried out to find the lacunae in our response system if any. Educating people about steps required to be taken in the event of a disaster is another important aim of the whole exercise,” Mr Dev said.