Prague Congress Centre holds Czech’s largest ever anti-terrorist exercise

The Prague Congress Centre (PCC) in the Czech Republic hosted the country’s largest ever anti-terrorism exercise on 10 and 11 September. It was coordinated alongside the Rapid Deployment Unit of the Czech Republic and the mayor of Prague Mgr. Adriana Krnacova. It served as an important test following the recent modernization of the building, which included new security systems. The drill saw 70 armed perpetrators invading a musical performance in the presence of 2,000 visitors – extras who were freed by the intervention of elite units of the Czech police. Preparations for the event took more than a year. More than 400 police officers, 50 medical officers and six fire brigade units evacuated all 2000 hostages that were positioned all around the premises of the Prague Congress Centre within seven minutes. Within 100 minutes of the intervention, the last “wounded” person was transported to the Královské Vinohrady Faculty Hospital. The PCC is the Czech Republic’s second largest building in terms of engineering technology. Every year it hosts hundreds of thousands of visitors, and so security if paramount. PCC security director Jiri Brych said: “The effort to increase the safety of our visitors has naturally led to the idea of carrying out a drill where all IRS groups will be able to prove their skills and test their limits, and the PCC will be able to practice the evacuation of a large number of people from such complex premises.”