- Department:Hazard Control Division
Co-established by Environmental Protection Administration (EPA) and Ministry of Education (MOE) at National Kaohsiung University of Science and Technology (NKUST), “Southern Emergency Response Training Center of Toxic Substances” (SERT) specially invited Minister of EPA Chang Tzi-Chin to attend its anniversary event today. SERT is our nation’s first toxic substance emergency response training center established mainly to train professional emergency responders of toxic substances in order to enhance operators’ emergency response capabilities. After its launch on August 3 last year, SERT already trained 5,583 persons (to be updated till the end of July). This year, SERT is further certified by Texas A&M Engineering Extension Service (TEEX) as East Asia’s first internationally recognized professional emergency response training center of toxic substances and will become an international training center in East Asia in the future. In the event, Minister Chang gave recognition to SERT’s proactive performance in terms of opening classes over the year as its efforts on training emergency responders can effectively enhance operators and government agencies’ emergency response capacities, ensure the safety of people's lives and property, and reduce emergency responders’ risks.
According to practical experiences in the handling of domestic and overseas accidents, the most effective way to prevent and reduce toxic and chemical disasters is to enhance operators’ response capabilities in order to effectively control the scale of disaster in the early stage of its occurrence. Having hands-on training on a sites with professional facilities enables trainees to directly and effectively learn from real operations, helping them to enhance their training effectiveness. Therefore, EPA and MOE have launched an interdepartmental cooperation project to establish SERT at NKUST. The project design and planning process was initiated in 2014; the construction was taken place between 2018 and 2020, totally 3 years; and the first class was launched on August 3, 2021 in order to enhance domestic emergency response capacity and protect people's lives, property and safety.
SERT is our nation’s first professional toxic substance emergency response training site that provides various response chemical laboratory and transportation accident response training. After its launch on August 3 last year, SERT already opened 67 classes and trained 5,583 persons, pointing its important role in the country’s disaster prevention and mitigation training. Oriented to becoming an international training institution, SERT has been certified by TEEX and became its first cooperative learning center in East Asia. In the future, those who have completed the professional emergency responder training at SERT will also receive the NFPA 472/1072 certificate of TEEX. SERT also plans to recruit members from East Asia in order to become an international training center.
EPA expressed that there was around 3,743 operators handling toxic and concerned chemical substances in the countries and they are required register the information of their emergency responders who possess a qualification certificate starting from January 1, 2024. Currently, 4 institutions have been certified in the country, offering operators the channels to train emergency responders. Through the channels, operators can strengthen their emergency response knowledge and enhance their overall disaster prevention awareness. Operators that have not completed the training or have the training demand are reminded to register the training in nearly training institution.
