TAINAN (TVBS News) — Taiwan initiated a comprehensive national emergency preparedness exercise in the southern city of Tainan on Thursday (March 27), putting its crisis response systems to the test under extreme scenarios. The "2025 Whole Society Resilience Drills" (2025全社會防衛韌性委員會實地演練) brought together nearly a thousand participants in simulations designed to evaluate how effectively government agencies and civilian organizations could respond to catastrophic events. The exercises centered around three potentially devastating scenarios: a powerful earthquake, subsequent tsunami warnings, and mysterious explosions targeting key infrastructure facilities across the island.
The nationwide resilience initiative represents the culmination of efforts begun last June when President Lai Ching-te (賴清德) formed the Whole Society Resilience Committee (全社會防衛韌性委員會) to strengthen Taiwan's emergency preparedness framework. Thursday's exercises in Tainan marked the first practical implementation of this committee's work, with both President Lai and Vice President Hsiao Bi-khim (蕭美琴) observing the proceedings. The drills brought together a diverse cross-section of Taiwan's emergency response infrastructure, including 400 professional personnel from disaster prevention agencies, civil defense units, and infrastructure security forces, complemented by 500 civilian volunteers simulating affected populations.
The exercise planners developed two distinct crisis scenarios to test different aspects of Taiwan's emergency response capabilities. In Scenario A, responders confronted a simulated 8.0 magnitude earthquake originating from the Philippine Sea Plate, striking at 8:30 a.m. This powerful seismic event carried the additional threat of generating tsunami waves predicted to make landfall along Taiwan's vulnerable southern coastlines within a narrow 60 to 90-minute window. Throughout this simulation, authorities focused on three critical objectives: ensuring continuity of government operations despite infrastructure damage, maintaining essential civilian services during the crisis, and establishing protocols to support military operations if required during a national emergency.
The drills began with Scenario B, which chronologically preceded the earthquake simulation despite being designated as the second scenario. This exercise simulated a devastating explosion at the Anping Port Tourist Service Center (安平港遊客服務中心), creating a mass casualty situation affecting 200 people. First responders demonstrated their ability to rapidly establish field medical stations and implement triage protocols. The exercise included the coordinated transportation of simulated victims to an emergency treatment area established in the public plaza across from the Anping District Yuping Post Office (至安平區育平郵局), testing the medical evacuation chain from incident site to treatment facilities.
In remarks delivered the day before the exercises commenced, President Lai underscored the strategic significance of designing multifaceted disaster scenarios that challenge response systems on multiple fronts simultaneously. He specifically highlighted the value of testing three critical emergency functions: coordinating large-scale civilian evacuations from danger zones, rapidly expanding medical treatment capacity during mass casualty events, and ensuring seamless cooperation between government agencies and private sector partners. The president expressed his expectation that these drills would serve a dual purpose—refining institutional response capabilities while also raising public awareness about disaster preparedness and encouraging citizens to develop personal emergency plans.
