Lafcarr's early warning sirens were activated in Sabiñánigo on Thursday 17 June during the first chemical emergency drill held in Aragon. A team of 150 people took part in the exercise, which aimed to assess emergency procedures, the effectiveness of the response organisation and the alarm, warning and communication systems. The activation of the civil protection plans needed to manage the emergency was also tested, along with coordination between the Forward Command Post at Sabiñánigo Town Hall and the Operations Coordination Centre in the 112 Aragon Crisis Room.
The drill successfully tested an app developed by Lafcarr that will let Sabiñánigo residents receive notification of any chemical emergency on their mobile phones.
The alarms went off at 11:00, when the sirens signalling the chemical emergency began to sound in the town. A fire at the Ercros plant, with no injuries, had been simulated, in which 1,000 litres of trichloroisocyanuric acid burned. The company's Self-Protection Plan was activated, followed by the Sabiñánigo External Emergency Plan, setting off the sirens to tell residents to shelter in place.
In a chemical emergency, sirens are the first way of warning the public. They have a distinctive alarm sound that ramps up, gradually increasing in power. It reaches 85 dB in the areas closest to the sirens and never drops below 65 dB in the furthest areas.
This test completes the Sabiñánigo External Emergency Plan, which began in 2019 with the installation of three sirens to warn the public in a chemical emergency. The regional government says that, once the work in Sabiñánigo is complete, similar actions will be carried out in other towns in the region.
