Mock July 7-style terror attack designed to test responses to attack during Games deemed 'very successful'
The government, police and other emergency staff are very positive about their response to a mock July 7-style terror attack on the underground, which was staged as part of a mass security test for the London 2012 Games, the home secretary, Theresa May, has said.
She visited the scene, the disused Aldwych station close to central London's Royal Courts of Justice, on Wednesday after chairing a Cobra meeting as part of the live test. The government's top-level Cobra committee sits in times of emergency and national crisis.
May, who will be continuing to take part in meetings throughout the two-day exercise, said: "We remain ever vigilant. Our security services do a very good job but we must remain ever vigilant and aware of the terrorist threat.
"An awful lot of planning has taken place for the security of the Olympic Games. The planning started before we won the bid in 2005 and it has carried on but it is right that we have a full programme of planning and exercising which enables us to put those plans to the test.
"If there are further lessons to be learned, we will learn those lessons.
"What I have had is a very positive response from the people here today about how the plans have worked. We continue to make sure we are learning lessons that need to be learned so that we can ensure that people can enjoy the Olympics as a great sporting event and we can provide a safe and secure Olympic and Paralympic Games."
Some 2,500 people – spanning everyone from constables to the Cobra committee – were put through their paces by the two-day test, dubbed Forward Defensive. Much of the action is taking place behind closed doors.
The event is being staged to mimic 8 and 9 August, two very busy days during the Olympics.
The prospect of a "lone wolf" attack has particularly been in the minds of police since rightwing Norwegian gunman Anders Behring Breivik killed at least 69 people in a massacre at a youth camp on the island of Utoya in July last year, according to Metropolitan police commissioner, Bernard Hogan-Howe.
He said: "After we saw the attack in Norway by a single individual, that has been part of our planning over the last year. It has been about identifying an individual in this country or abroad and if there is a possibility of someone like that attacking the Olympic event. We think that is very unlikely but obviously it has formed part of our planning this year as we lead up to the Olympics."
He hopes the live exercise, complete with the evacuation of actors pretending to be distressed and wounded victims, will help to reassure the public about security for the Games.
"We are reassuring the public that we have got some good training, some good leadership and any learning we have from today will be fed in to our plans before the Olympics occur," he said.
Suicide bombers killed 52 people in London on 7 July 2005, the day after the city was awarded the right to host the Games. Rescue and emergency workers found that communications was a major problem.
The London mayor, Boris Johnson, said the test had been "very successful in the sense that a partial explosion has cost the loss of two lives but the emergency services have been very satisfied with work they had done to get people out".
He noted: "Exercises like this are incredibly important because they help to establish what would happen in such an eventuality but I want everyone to know that the London Underground network is the safest in Europe.
"What we are looking at is a very extreme risk."
The exercise, which has been many months in the making, is not based on specific intelligence but designed to test responses and decision-making in light of an attack during the Games.
Communications between key strategic decision-makers, who are not used to working together but have specific tie-ups for the Games, were put under the spotlight.
This includes the police National Olympic Co-ordination Centre at Scotland Yard, the transport co-ordination centre and the London 2012 organisers' main operation centre.
The current terror threat is substantial from international and Northern Ireland sources. Planning has been carried out for a severe threat level during the Games with a contingency that it could be stepped up to critical if needed.
Serious crime, protests and natural hazards are other risks to the Games.
Lessons learned from the 7 July bombings have been fed in to the exercise and security plans for the Games, according to Howard Collins, London Underground's chief operating officer.
He said: "We have certainly picked up a number of recommendations, for example the response for our vehicles are now escorted under blue-light conditions to get through London quickly.
"There are a number of other exercises ranging from first aid equipment and how we work together.
"Obviously there is the initial response, communications and making sure we have one route for all communication and ensuring that the rest of the underground system knows what is happening.
"The most important thing for us, if at all possible, under the guidance of our own transport providers and the police, is to keep moving at all times."
More than 400 London Ambulance Services (LAS) paramedics will be deployed during the Games. There will also be 70 ambulances available to respond to calls specifically related to the Games. This is in addition to the 250 ambulances which are provided for London every day.
Jason Killens, the London Ambulance Service's (LAS) deputy director of operations, said the aim was to ensure the emergency services are "as prepared as they can be" the Games.
He said: "We have learned a lot since the London bombings in 2005 and today we are testing some of the changes we have made and seeing that we can work effectively with our partners."
LAS has increased the number of people it deploys to do triage, or assess large numbers of patients, and changed the training for those who do this work so they manage bleeding and obstructed airways.
"This is a change that has happened since 2005. It is to ensure those patients who are seriously injured have the best possible chance of survival," Killens said.