SINGAPORE – A crowd of Republic Polytechnic (RP) students have been dancing and clapping to the beat at a live campus performance before their cheers became bloodcurdling screams. At the same time, four “gunmen” stormed into the venue and fired at them.
Five students and four safety employees were “killed” at the same time, as five were “injured” at some stage in the “terror attack” on Tuesday (July 23).
The relaxation of 193 college students who escaped the gunmen’s hearth fled from the campus lawn to hide. The polytechnic in Woodlands went into “lockdown.”
Within minutes, eight officers from the Singapore Police Force (SPF) arrived on the scene, took 3 of the assailants down, and arrested the final person who surrendered.
The “shooting” became a simulated terror assault called Exercise Heartbeat, part of SGSecure’s efforts to beautify the community’s emergency preparedness in any area, whether on campus, in a motel, or a shopping mall.
This workout, which lasted approximately 15 minutes, is likewise the first to be performed in a concert and held a few days before RP’s annual pupil-led track festival starts on Friday.
Senior Parliamentary Secretary for Home Affairs Amrin Amin, who determined the “shootout,” said the workout became targeted at younger human beings as it changed into being held in a college setting.
“Exercises like this deliver out an experience of overwhelming disaster… we want to do that, so our younger humans are sensitized and take additional steps to equip themselves with expertise and emergency preparedness,” he added on the sidelines of the exercise.
This became the fourth workout held this year. The previous three were achieved at Ang Mo Kio-Thye Hua Kwan Hospital in June, Crowne Plaza Changi Airport in May, and 313 @ Somerset.
The workout became collectively organized using SPF and RP and supported by the Singapore Civil Defence Force, SMRT Buses, and Wee Chwee Huat Scaffolding and Construction (WCH).
As WCH Scaffolding and Construction is part of the Safety and Security Watch Group within the Woodlands East Neighbourhood Police Centre, 5 of the corporation’s staff had been deployed to RP to manage the first useful resource to the “injured,” with the help of skilled RP students.
In a part of the workout shown in a video, SMRT bus captains were directed to divert their routes far from the polytechnic.
Since 2016, RP has been training and schooling its students and personnel to familiarise them with emergency approaches in reaction to terror attacks.
On top of upgrading the polytechnic’s safety facilities, the institute organizes briefings and programs to promote anti-terrorism awareness in the 12 months and arranges first-aid courses for its students, teachers, and staff. Second-year pupil Cecilia Lui, 18, who performed an injured concertgoer on the workout, said the primary-useful resource training she learned in college could help her react appropriately during a real assault.