00:00At a secret bushland location at the foot of the Blue Mountains, dozens of Australian
00:07Federal Police, soldiers and forensic officers are sent to comb over the aftermath of what
00:12appears to be a terrorist attack.
00:15There was a simulated building collapse that was caused by an explosion. The six hostages
00:22were missing people and their bodies weren't discovered for a couple of weeks.
00:26It's actually a drill for a joint training exercise where multiple victims are buried
00:31under the rubble. But the bodies they are working to recover are real. They've been
00:36donated to one of the world's only body farms, officially known as the Australian Facility
00:41for Taphonomic Experimental Research.
00:43It adds an element of realism that I haven't seen before in any training environment. We
00:48understand it's the only training environment in the world that's doing this sort of disaster
00:53training with real cadavers.
00:55The facility, run by UTS, is a place where scientists usually study how human remains
01:00decompose. But for five days it was transformed into a training ground for the AFP specialists
01:05who are assigned the grim task of identifying Australian victims of mass casualty events
01:11like plane crashes and bombings.
01:13As they examine the bodies at a temporary morgue on site and use the latest technology
01:17to try to identify them as soon as possible, they're practising skills they wish they didn't
01:22have to use.
01:24The main drive I suppose for us is to bring that comfort to families as quickly as we
01:30can at a really terrible time in their lives.
01:34High stakes work in the saddest of circumstances.
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