RIMPAC exercise: Navies simulate humanitarian response to ty

The world’s largest international maritime exercise is underway in Hawaii. It’s called the Rim of the Pacific exercise or RIMPAC. And, for the first time ever, China is taking part. There are dozens of ships, submarines, and about two-hundred aircraft on display.

CCTV correspondent Nathan King at the control center.

Not the sort of accommodation most visitors to Hawaii would expect, but for the next week this will be home for U.S. Navy Captain Chris Peterschmidt and his Japanese counterparts as they war game a humanitarian response to a typhoon that has devastated the fictional island of "Griffin."

On the surface this looks like any normal office or control center, but you’ve got to remember that everything here has had to be brought in from the outside. In this simulation, the country is completely devastated. We are talking electrical supplies ... we are talking about mthe Internet. We are even talking about the air conditioning. Everything has to be set up and setup quickly, within 72 hours.

Their job To manage all the incoming information offers of help and coordinate participating nations to try save as many lives as possible, and get the host government back on its feet.

"Losing power and their buildings are damaged but they are still trying to manage emergency functions - they are really enamored with this capability where we can come in right away- give them laptops internet connection , phone lines all the cell phone towers are down." Commodore Chris Peterschmidt, US navy said.

And can you run a military operation run on solar and wind RIMPAC is doing just that. This camp housing the humanitarian teams is almost entirely green. Roll out solar panels and wind turbines power this camp -- not a diesel generator in sight -- no need to ship in fuel, which saves time and money.

And out at sea will be the hospital ships. The U.S. has the Mercy. China has the Peace Ark. Sun Tao runs the ship’s hospital and is proud of the vast array of assets it has to offer the humanitarian exercise.

We will send translation and b-roll covering second half. DC will need to drop in the original from the stuff transcribed Tuesday." Sun said, "Our Medical Ship is the same as a hospital on land. We have 300 beds, six departments, and some major equipment such as CT and DR. And we have eight operating rooms, so in the operating room, we can make sure that the patients with fractures are stabilized. What’s more, we have a dialysis machine, it can still work even while the ship is shaking. The patients’ body temperature will drop down immediately if they fall into the sea. So we have solutions to make sure that the patients’ body temperatures recover soon after."

Despite their national differences, all nations here at RIMPAC agree it’s inevitable there will be a big humanitarian disaster in this region requiring responses from many nations. Assets like this hospital ship will be brought to bear as will many other things that we’ve seen. The question is how quickly nations can respond, how well they can coordinate and how many lives can be saved. 

China's Peace Ark participate in the drill.