Within the framework of implementing the General Directorate of Civil Protection’s operational activity plan for the year 2026, and in assessment of the ability of civil protection services to mobilize and respond in the event of disasters and crises, the General Directorate of Civil Protection is organizing a large-scale national first aid and rescue exercise simulating the occurrence of a strong earthquake in the state of Bouira under the title of Sesamex Bouira, during the period from February 7 to 12, 2026.
The exercise scenarios consist of an earthquake of magnitude 6.7 on the Richter scale in the southeastern part of Bouira province, with an epicenter located 14 km from the municipality of Oued El Berdi. The earthquake directly affected the municipalities of Oued El Berdi, Bouira, El Asnam, and Sour El Ghozlane, resulting in casualties and missing persons, and recording multiple events including the collapse of buildings, the collapse of dam walls, serious traffic accidents resulting from the earthquake, subsidence of the ground, derailment of railway carriages, explosions, leakage of hazardous materials, and other emergency scenarios.
In such circumstances, the situation requires a set of urgent measures and decisions, especially at the local level, following field identification operations and the number of calls received at the operational coordination center, by activating the provincial rescue plan, through mobilizing all human and material resources included in this plan, in addition to activating the operational command centers to coordinate between the civil protection services, the fixed command center, and the operational command center. For the first time, a veterinary medical center will be established to deal with accidents and injuries that search dogs may be exposed to while performing their duties. Also, building risk assessment teams have been established, consisting of 70 officers who received special training on building risk assessment during the year 2025.
Then the alert level will be raised to the second level at the local level with the recruitment of support and initial intervention teams, and at the international level the necessary measures will be taken to integrate international rescue teams if the need arises, by providing an international zone with the commitment of 03 national teams to establish the devices that can receive the international teams and ensure coordination between them upon their arrival in the field, which requires the integration of liaison officers in establishing a link between the administrations of the various security agencies in ports and airports in order to address the necessary procedures for foreign teams within the framework of international assistance.
The objectives set by the experts and organizers are:
Evaluating the response time of civil protection services in large-scale disaster situations, standardizing the adopted operational techniques and methods, evaluating the operational organization in utilizing large human and material resources, measuring the effectiveness of developed operational equipment and procedures, evaluating the coordination between the national and international operational systems when they are activated together, evaluating the flow of operational information using the digital platforms dedicated to this purpose, particularly between the various cells responsible for managing this exercise and monitoring the progress of operations at the maneuver sites, as well as creating a database of the staff responsible for managing the exercise and referring to experiences at the end of the exercise.
In this context, on Monday, February 9, 2026, the Minister of the Interior, Local Authorities, Urban Planning and Transport, Mr. Said Saïoud, accompanied by the Director General of Civil Protection, Colonel Boualem Boughelouf, and in the presence of the Governor of Bouira Province and the military, security and civil authorities, will inspect the progress of the practical exercises at the training sites.
This event provides an opportunity to showcase the operational and organizational capabilities and professionalism of the Civil Protection services in effectively responding to disasters, the progress achieved in developing human resources and expertise, and the ongoing preparation of resources and capabilities to ensure a rapid response in emergencies. The exercise also underscores the firm and nationally and internationally recognized commitment demonstrated by the participation of Algerian Civil Protection services in intervention and rescue missions during disasters abroad.
This unique gathering involves 6003 intervention elements from the Civil Protection services of all ranks, within 44 support and initial intervention teams distributed across the following specialties: command teams, search and rescue teams under rubble, underwater and diving teams, search and rescue teams in rugged areas, trained dog teams, intervention cells for nuclear, radiological, biological and chemical hazards (NRBC), disaster medicine units, communications and logistics means, in addition to the participation of a detachment from the National School as an observer team, whereby 549 field maneuvers will be carried out during the exercise period by the various interveners.
It should be noted that the technical supervision of the exercise will be by senior officers of the General Directorate of Civil Protection who specialize in crisis and disaster management.
