Indonesian airports get disaster training

   The Indonesian government, in partnership with Deutsche Post DHL and United Nations Development Program, has initiated a disaster preparedness program for the country’s airports.
    This year’s “Get Airports Ready for Disaster” training program will take place at the Ngurah Rai airport Denpasar, Bali and El Tari in Kupang, West Timor.
    Supported by the United Nations Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UN-OCHA), the GARD training aims to prepare airport personnel to cope during the aftermath of a disaster. This year’s training is organized and funded by the Indonesian Ministry of Transportation and is an expansion of the first GARD training that was launched in Jakarta in 2009.
    ”This training is very useful for airport personnel in disaster-prone regions or in the proximity of those regions to enable them to take effective and immediate measures during disasters, said Herry Bakti, Director-General of Air Transportation from the Ministry of Transportation, in a statement.
    The training mainly focuses on logistic management and trainees are expected to produce contingency plans during disaster. Warehouse space management, for example, is one of the program’s focus areas. Trainees are instructed in assessing storage options for relief goods and whether the necessary equipment such as forklifts, pallets, gloves and boxes, is available for cargo handling.
    “The plan for the GARD training is to become a staple in each airport’s annual safety drill which includes dealing with aircraft accidents and fire safety exercises,” Joachim Keppler, Program Manager for GARD at Deutsche Post DHL, in a statement. “Once trained, the participants will evaluate their contingency plan on a regular basis and be prepared to work with local NGOs (non-governmental organizations), the government and airport officials in the event of a crisis.”