# King watches major incident exercise in Amersfoort

> The Calamiteitenhospitaal, the Netherlands' emergency hospital, simulated a large road accident in Amersfoort on Saturday morning in its annual exercise, with King Willem-Alexander looking on.

Society · published 2026-10-31 18:14 · https://nlnow.nl/a/king-watches-disaster-exercise-with-simulated-coach-crash/

Emergency services practised a large accident with cars and a coach on Saturday morning at the Bernardkazerne barracks in Amersfoort. It was the yearly exercise of the Calamiteitenhospitaal, linked to UMC Utrecht. King Willem-Alexander watched from the sidelines.

The simulated crash had around 100 casualties, played by actors, along with an overturned coach and a burning car. Doctors and nurses knew that 30 wounded military personnel would arrive, and they prepared for this when the alert came at about 9am.

The Calamiteitenhospitaal is normally an empty part of UMC Utrecht. It must be operational within half an hour if a major incident or disaster strikes the Netherlands, or if soldiers are wounded on a military mission. It is a partnership of UMC Utrecht and the ministries of Defence and Health, and has existed for 35 years.

A Defence spokesperson called it one of the largest joint exercises, meant "to gauge how resilient we are". Several Defence units, the Red Cross, the Utrecht safety region, police, fire brigade and ambulance services, and hundreds of actors took part.

A Defence train also pulled into the barracks, simulating the arrival of wounded soldiers from a large NATO mission in Eastern Europe.

## Background

- **Calamiteitenhospitaal**: The Calamiteitenhospitaal is a mobile field hospital that can be set up quickly at the site of a major disaster or mass-casualty incident, so that large numbers of injured people can be treated close to where the accident happened. It is linked to UMC Utrecht, which provides its medical staff and equipment, and it trains regularly through practice exercises with emergency services. It matters because it adds treatment capacity to the regular hospitals and ambulance services during large-scale emergencies in the Netherlands.

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