KATHMANDU, Nepal -- Members of the Nepalese Army, U.S. Army Pacific, and more than nine other nations participated in the closing ceremony of the Pacific Resilience Disaster Response Exercise and Exchange (DREE) Sept. 23 in Kathmandu, Nepal.

During the four-day exercise from Sept. 20-23, participants in the DREE were able increase interoperability and multi-national collaboration efforts for disaster response and humanitarian aid operations.

The exercise was started with the 120 plus multi-national participants separated into strategic disaster response groups that are key to actions and operations during a world disaster.

"Separating the groups and allowing them to work internally only prepared them for the field training portion of the exercise," said Lt. Col. Jagdish Khadka, lead Nepalese exercise control planner, Nepalese Army. "A mega scale disaster is not anything a single agency can do; it is a multi-agency task. We facilitate the exercise to provoke the different agencies and organizations to coordinate that is the highlight of the field training exercise."

The year's DREE included representatives from Bangladesh, Canada, China, Maldives, Mongolia, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Thailand, United Kingdom, United States, as well as representatives from international organizations, non-governmental organizations and multinational observers.

"Disaster response is not just a military endeavor, it's in fact a whole of government endeavor, and when a really terrible crises occurs such as that that occurred here in Nepal in April of last year, it becomes an international endeavor," said Maj. Gen. Gregory C. Bilton, deputy commanding general, U.S. Army Pacific.

Ongoing throughout the exercise, events such as search and rescue and massive casualty evaluation and evacuation took place. Communication and humanitarian aid and logistics were also tested through complex exercise injections that forced all the individual agencies to collaborate to meet one collective end state, this type of separation and controlled chaos helped push sections to commutate with each other as well as combine collective information to complete their mission.

The Nepalese government greatly appreciated the collaborative efforts and success by all the nations involved. They found the exercise to beneficial to all nations participating as well as the Nepalese government.

In his closing remarks Bilton discussed the number of experiences and exchanges that presented themselves this week, and how it presented the opportunity to exchange ideas and afford everyone involved a better understanding of natural disasters.

"Take what you have learned during this exercise back to your country and share your understanding and knowledge so when we do have another natural disaster and respond again our understanding has improved and we are not just an audience," Bilton said.