In mid-June, the construction of first simulated training ground for flood fighting and disaster relief operation was completed and put into operation in a pontoon bridge regiment of the Shenyang Military Area Command (MAC), indicating that the flood fighting and disaster relief training has changed from "mere paper talk" to real troops drill.
At the simulated training ground, the reporter saw that it was raining heavily with strong wind within the ground while it was sunny outside. In the drilling area of dam sliding and cleavage gushing, the officers and men were busy driving wooden stakes, laying steel pipes and filling in sandbags. In the drilling area for building reinforcement on top of a dyke, the floodwater was very violent with rolling muddy waves. A number of advanced flood fighting equipment such as glass fiber for reinforcement on top of a dyke were used one after another.
As there was no special drilling ground in the past, it was very hard for professional emergency flood fighting and disaster relief troops to carry out technical drills, thus it became a "bottleneck" hindering improvement of the capability of flood fighting and disaster relief of the troops. As a special flood fighting and disaster relief unit of the army, this pontoon bridge regiment, in the face of fund shortage, managed to build the first large scale flood fighting and disaster relief simulated drilling ground in China with wide adoption of modern technologies, such as simulation and information technologies in light of requirements of teaching and training.
The simulated training ground covers an area of 13,000 square meters and consists of ten drilling areas such as disaster situation exploration, leakage blocking and environmental simulation. It can accommodate several organic companies to carry out flood fighting and disaster relief technical drill at the same time.
By Huang Changgang and Jiao Yuqing
(July 13, PLA Daily)
