Delhi will witness one of the biggest ever coordinated mockdrills under which 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.
A number of metro stations will be closed for upto half-an-hour and road traffic will be converted in many areas of Central, South and North Delhi as part of the exercise which is being organised to test check Delhi's disaster response mechanism in the event of high intensity earthquake.
Commuters in metro, bus transport as well as motorists are set to face inconvenience because of the mega mockdrill to be held between 11 am and 2 pm.
"It will be first of its kind mockdrill in the entire country during which we will create a number of simulated situations like collapse of flyovers, crack in metro pillars, damage to hospitals and collapse of residential buildings due to an earthquake measuring 7 on the Richter scale," Divisional Commissioner Vijay Dev said.
The mega mockdrill is part of a 2-month-long earthquake preparedness exercise launched by Delhi Disaster Management Authority (DDMA) in cooperation with National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA).
"All concerned agencies and departments including DDMA, Health department, Delhi Metro, Police and Transport Department are part of the exercise which is being carried out to find out lacunae in our response system," Dev said.
He said educating people about steps required to be taken in the event of a diasster was another important aim of the whole exercise.
Dev said DDMA will issue traffic advisories so that commuters do not face any inconvenience.