Multinational Sub Rescue Exercise Begins
Navies from the United States, Japan, South Korea and Singapore on Monday began the first combined submarine rescue exercise in the Pacific.
The 13-day Exercise Pacific Reach 2000 involves 600 people, four ships, four submarines and three sophisticated underwater craft that can rescue personnel from submarines in distress.
The exercise was planned well before this summer’s Russian submarine disaster that killed 118 sailors, and participants are hoping it will help prepare them for similar emergencies.
Russia, China, Britain, Australia, Canada, Chile and Indonesia were invited as observers.
“This is the first time we’ve really had the chance to work together in a regional submarine rescue exercise in the Pacific,” said Lt. Leslie Hull-Ryde, a Navy spokeswoman in Singapore. Working together with the other navies will promote “greater understanding” in the Asia-Pacific region, she said.
The exercise is being held in the South China Sea about 230 miles off Singapore.
Japan’s equivalent of a naval force is called the Maritime Self-Defense Forces. Japan’s armed forces are constitutionally limited to a self-defense role.
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