Denmark - Official Denmark - Defence and Military

Denmark
1. Official Denmark
1.13 Defence and Military

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1.13.1 The Post-war Situation
1.13.2 The Present Situation
1.13.3 The Army
1.13.4 The Navy
1.13.5 The Air Force
1.13.6 Home Guard
1.13.7 Military Resources
1.13.8 The National Rescue Corps

The National Rescue Corps

The Rescue Preparedness Corps forms part of Denmark's overall defence arrangements, being a combination of the former civil defence and the fire service. The Rescue Preparedness Corps belongs under the Ministry of the Interior and have the task of preventing, limiting and putting right damage to persons, property and the environment caused by accidents and catastrophes, including acts of war or the imminent danger of such. The National Regional Rescue Preparedness arrangements are the responsibility of the National Rescue Preparedness Corps, which each year calls up some 1400 conscripts who carry out their service in six regional relief centres. The National Rescue Preparedness Corps has twenty-four-hour emergency centres which offer support to the officer in charge of the local rescue service in the case of fire, oil or chemical spillages, flooding, railway accidents, etc. In addition the emergency services form part of the nationwide mobile atomic monitoring force in which units can supplement the permanent automatic monitoring system in the case of accidents in atomic power stations in neighbouring countries.

The Rescue Preparedness Corps enjoys widespread co-operation with corresponding units abroad, especially in the other Scandinavian countries, and with rescue work organised under NATO. Since the 1970s rescue corps officers and from the 1990s also conscripts have increasingly been sent out to contribute to international aid efforts in the case of disaster and urgent need, partly on behalf of the Danish government, partly through the medium of the Danish Red Cross, Danish Refugee Aid and the EC/EU. After the 1992 earthquake in eastern Turkey three rescue teams were sent to the town of Erzincan, where they took part in searching for and freeing victims trapped in collapsed buildings. Contributions to international aid operations were later intensified to provide emergency transport and the food distribution in places including Saint Petersburg and former Yugoslavia during the civil war there.

After the 1992 earthquake in eastern Turkey three rescue teams were sent to the town of Erzincan, where they took part in searching for and freeing victims trapped in collapsed buildings. Contributions to international aid operations were later intensified to provide emergency transport and the food distribution in places including Saint Petersburg and former Yugoslavia during the civil war there.

Søren Grauslund

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