MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Chile and Argentine armies complete survival and SAR exercise in Antarctica

The command post was at Chile’s Bernardo O’Higgins base

Following on eleven days of activities including search and rescue operations and survival in Antarctic territory, Chilean and Argentine army patrols ended on Sunday the “SAR Land 2011” exercise in the framework of the Argentine-Chilean combined Antarctic rescue patrol program, Paracach.

The annual training and preparedness exercise this year had the participation of the Exploratory Group from the Argentine Army Antarctic base “Esperanza” and the Exploration Group from the Chilean Army Antarctic base “General Bernardo O’Higgins”.

“SAR Land 2011” demanded the groups to trek along 280 kilometres of Antarctic territory with temperatures as low as 24 Celsius below zero and winds of up to 160 kilometres per hour. The Chilean group was divided into two patrols, the first three, a radio operator, a mechanic and a nurse, who worked jointly with a similar Argentine patrol. The second was a rescue group, which included three explorers, on 24 hours rapid deployment alert, ready in the event of any call.

The Chilean O’Higgins base had the command post with a satellite communications module and last generation Barrett radios plus a ‘prototype’ tracking and follow up module with Canatec beacons. The whole result of the operations, particularly the communications and state of the art tracking system will be analyzed during the next meeting of the “Antarctic Programs administrators”.

The exercise, which included displacements on glaciers was planned and directed by the Chilean Army Antarctic command with satellite imagery support from the German Space Agency operation from Antarctica.