Following a morning alarm by the local radio-station, and loud-speaker vans, 25,000 members of the population of the Swedish town of Vasteras were evacuated by cars and specially laid-on buses, Apr 24, as they took part in a rehearsal of procedure to be followed should an atomic attack threaten the town. Some 2,600 private cars were expected to leave Vasteras within one hour of the alarm being given.

The manoeuvre, which Swedish papers described as the biggest of its kind in the world, took the authorities six months to plan, and affected inhabitants of the east and northern districts of the town. No sick or old people were allowed to take part and people from other parts of Vasteras were forbidden to enter the manoeuvre-districts.

All evacuees were told to bring knife, fork, spoon, soup-plate and drinking mug as meals were to be served when they reached reception centres in neighbouring townships.

Foreign military observers were present as streams of traffic - controlled from light planes and helicopters - followed special routes out of the town. Arrangements had been made to bring everybody home before nightfall.