A powerful 7.5 magnitude earthquake strikes the Maltese coast in the early hours on Saturday morning.
The Civil Protection Department immediately sets up an operations base at Ta’ Kandja to assess its resources and dispatch rescuers.
Reports start flooding in. A route bus in Kalkara lands on its side following a traffic accident involving two passenger cars and an ambulance, while people are trapped under rubble after two hotels in the north of the island caved in.
These were two of eight scenes that formed part of an unprecedented national training exercise organised by the Civil Protection Department to test its resources and communication between the different emergency services during a natural disaster.
Similar local emergency management administration was adopted during the Libyan Arab Spring, and when Malta was hit by torrential flooding in September.
Although many consider Malta as a safe place, the country has to be prepared for any eventuality, said Home Affairs Parliamentary Secretary Beppe Fenech Adami, who went on site at the Kalkara traffic accident.
The first CPD officers that arrived on site assessed the situation, and then called the operations base for backup as there were some 30 casualties. Personnel from the Emergency Fire and Rescue Unit, Red Cross and St John Rescue Corps, among others, rushed to provide assistance. But when the shrieks and screams of those trapped in the vehicles started dying out, an officer suddenly called out that a woman had just given birth.
Within minutes, an Italian Military Mission Helicopter with an Italo-Maltese crew arrived to evacuate the newborn and its mother.
Meanwhile, the operations room received a report that a person fell in a water reservoir in Bighi and rescuers needed to be dispatched to the site.
During this national exercise, the CPD sought the assistance of radio amateurs to get in touch with Brussels, because no matter how prepared a country is for a natural disaster, it always needs the help of other countries, CDP Director Patrick Murgo said. He added that although the 300 people that took part in the training were forewarned about the date of the event, they were not aware what they would find and where they would be dispatched.