Mock Britomart evacuation a shambles

A mock evacuation of Auckland's Britomart transport centre turned into a shambles today when emergency services failed to arrive on the scene.

The simulated bomb explosion was to test the capabilities of emergency teams and the new transport hub.

But after 20 minutes of lying prostrate, one of the volunteer band of "dying and injured" sat up to ask if they were allowed to leave.

The elements of farce continued as music piped through the speaker system throughout the emergency.

And an unsuspecting wedding party, which was holding an impromptu photo shoot in the transport centre, found itself hustled up the escalators and outside.

Auckland Regional Transport Network Ltd, which organised the event, said the actual evacuation had been a success.

People from the station got out within four minutes and another 50 people trapped on a train were out inside two minutes, said risk and safety manager Bob Lupton.

But police, fire and ambulance did not get to the scene for almost 20 minutes.

"It's shown us that we need to do a bit more work," said Mr Lupton. "But we are very pleased with the timing of the actual evacuation."

The simulation started shortly before 5pm. A planned controlled explosion didn't go off, but smoke was pumped into the train station. A call was made to emergency services at 4.55pm that a bomb was on a train.

Firemen and police poured into the centre at 5.20pm.

Senior Sergeant Rob Lindsay said emergency services would always wait outside in an explosion situation in case of a second blast.

"But we were 10 or so minutes later than we wanted to be. There was a lack of co-ordination that needs to be worked on."