PRT Celebrates Anniversary Of UN INSARAG Certification

Secretary/DG Punjab Emergency Service Department and Commander Pakistan Rescue Team (PRT) Dr Rizwan Naseer on Monday congratulated the members of the PRT on the third anniversary of its United Nations International Search and Rescue Advisory Group (INSARAG) Certification

LAHORE, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 31st Oct, 2022 ) :Secretary/DG Punjab Emergency Service Department and Commander Pakistan Rescue Team (PRT) Dr Rizwan Naseer on Monday congratulated the members of the PRT on the third anniversary of its United Nations International Search and Rescue Advisory Group (INSARAG) Certification.

In this regard, a cake-cutting ceremony was held at Emergency Services academy (ESA).

The DG said that it was a moment of immense pleasure and great honor for the Pakistan that rescue team of ESA achieved a milestone as first United Nations INSARAG Certified disaster response team in South Asia.

He directed the all DEOs to maintain light search & rescue teams in Punjab in line with guidelines of United Nations INSARAG.

He said that every member of the PRT from top to bottom deserved appreciation as everybody had its own role to meet the International standards for disaster response.

He said that the main theme to organise the event was to encourage the members of this specialized SAR team, recall great moments of international certification, and discussed the way forward to enhance the capacity of light Search & Rescue teams of the districts.

Dr Rizwan Naseer highlighted the journey starting in 2005 after the devastating Pakistan Earthquake of 2005 for the establishment of first Disaster Response Team.

This certification was a several years' process under the supervision of a Mentor assigned by the UN-INSARAG Secretariat to train and supervise the Disaster Emergency Response team as per best international practices and then after periodic evaluations by UN INSARAG Observers, finally, a team of United Nations International Classifiers from Austria, England, Germany, Switzerland, Morocco, Jordan, and United Nations - INSARAG Secretariat in Geneva came to Lahore from 28th to 31st October 2019 for final 36 hours Team Evaluation Exercise and Representative from United Nations OCHA INSARAG Secretariat Geneva Switzerland Mr Winston Chang officially declared that the "PRT stood tall amongst the world elite as officially UN Classified Urban Search & Rescue Team".

Dr Rizwan appreciated the efforts of team Leader PRT Dr Farhan Khalid and Deputy team Leader Muhammad Ahsan for establishing 36 Search & Rescue Teams.

He also acknowledged the support of UN OCHA Pakistan, UN INSARAG Secretariat, Mentors, classifiers, and NDMA Pakistan to make this certification possible.