Urban Search and Rescue New South Wales AUS-2

New South Wales Urban Search and Rescue Task Force 1 (or NSWTF/1) was first established as a USAR capability in the lead up to the 2000 Sydney Olympics. After earlier large-scale collapses including the 1977 Granville Train Disaster, 1989 Newcastle earthquake and 1997 Thredbo landslide, Fire & Rescue NSW was legislated as the combat authority for responding to major structural collapse incidents within the state of New South Wales.

The Task Force was classified as a Heavy USAR team by the United Nations INSARAG[1] organisation in 2012. When the NSW USAR Task Force is deployed internationally by the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs,[2] it assumes the call sign "AUS-2" in line with INSARAG guidelines.[3]

The Task Force is based in Sydney, New South Wales (Australia). It is a capability of Fire & Rescue NSW[4] but is staffed by emergency service workers from many federal and state agencies.

Every state of Australia has a local USAR capability. AUS-2 is one of two Task Forces that deploys internationally to provide international response to natural and man-made disasters - AUS-1 is a capability managed by the Queensland Fire & Emergency Service.[5]

Capabilities

The NSW USAR team can deploy many capabilities within a 6-hour time frame:

Deployments

Various size NSW USAR capabilities have been deployed to disasters around the world. These range from full Classified Heavy USAR teams to small incident management groups: 1977 Granville Train Disaster
1989 Newcastle earthquake
1997 Thredbo landslide [6] Multiple heavy USAR teams
1999 Taiwan earthquake Incident Management
1999 Turkey earthquake Incident Management
2000 Sydney Olympics
2004 Boxing Day tsunami (Indian Ocean) [7]
2006 Indonesia earthquake Logistics support for medical team
2009 Samoa tsunami Logistics support for medical team [8]
2011 Christchurch earthquake [9] Heavy USAR team and component of second Australian Heavy USAR team
2011 Japan earthquake and tsunami [10] Heavy USAR team
2015 Tropical Cyclone Pam, Vanuatu [11] Medium Disaster Assistance Team

Participating government agencies

Fire & Rescue NSW - incident management, logistics, rescue and hazmat
Australian Department of Foreign Affairs - liaison officers
Emergency Management Australia - liaison officers
NSW Police Force - security liaison
NSW State Emergency Service - canine search teams
NSW Public Works - structural engineers
NSW Health - doctors and medical cache
NSW Ambulance - paramedics

References

  1. ↑ "Welcome to INSARAG". insarag.org.
  2. ↑ "Home - Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade". dfat.gov.au.
  3. ↑ "INSARAG Guidelines". Insarag.org. Retrieved 2015-10-29.
  4. ↑ Fire and Rescue NSW. "Fire and Rescue NSW". nsw.gov.au.
  5. ↑ "Queensland Fire and Emergency Services". Qfes.qld.gov.au. 2013-06-30. Retrieved 2015-10-29.
  6. ↑ "Thredbo landslide - Australian Geographic". Australian Geographic.
  7. ↑ Fire and Rescue NSW. "South-East Asian Tsunami: NSWFB Deployment". nsw.gov.au.
  8. ↑ "Australia flies aid to tsunami victims". The Sydney Morning Herald.
  9. ↑ "Fire and Rescue NSW". nsw.gov.au.
  10. ↑ "NSW Search and Rescue Team Sent to Japan". Dailytelegraph.com.au. Retrieved 2015-10-29.
  11. ↑ "Taskforce repairing hospitals and schools in cyclone-devastated Port Vila return home to Sydney". ABC News.
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