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Operation Lionheart
12 March 2023
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📷: Operation Lionheart doing rescue work in the 2023 Turkey-Syria Earthquake (SCDF FB)
#TIL Even though Singapore is not prone to natural disasters such as earthquakes, tsunamis and hurricanes, our elite rescue unit — the @Singapore Civil Defence Force’s Disaster Assistance and Rescue Team (DART) — was the first in Asia-Pacific to achieve the highest level of classification as a Heavy Urban Search And Rescue Team by the United Nation’s International Search and Rescue Advisory Group in 2008. This seal of approval puts DART in the top class of rescuers in international disaster operations.
DART is highly trained in urban search and rescue, including height rescue, medical trauma incidents, water search and rescue and heli-bucket operations. The team was formed in May 1990, after the Singapore Fire Services merged with the SCDF and amalgamated their elite units, in the wake of the Hotel New World collapse in 1986. The team participates in missions overseas to learn from other nations and gain real life experiences. DART’s major operations in Singapore include the Nicoll Highway collapse on 20 April 2004.
Because disasters can happen without warning, the SCDF maintains a dedicated 79-member contingent on standby round-the-clock, code-named Operation Lionheart, to provide urban search and rescue and/or humanitarian relief assistance to countries afflicted by major disasters. Operation Lionheart comprises rescuers from DART and frontline units including Operationally Ready National Service men, all equipped with specialised equipment like life detecting devices and lifting and cutting tools to aid them in such missions. The contingent has search dogs as well as technical experts such as civil engineers and doctors who specialise in trauma and emergency medicine.
Operation Lionheart has been deployed throughout the Asia-Pacific region to render humanitarian assistance to countries hit by major disasters. Notable Operation Lionheart overseas missions include the recent Turkey-Syria Earthquake in 2023, and the flooding in New South Wales in Nov 2022.
Rescue work is dangerous in arduous conditions and our rescuers have carried out their roles with professionalism and courage in Singapore and overseas. Our nation is made stronger by these heroes in our midst.