As mentioned, ERAT is an on-the-ground assistance team facilitated by the AHA center
to work with domestic incident command systems. ERAT is composed of personnel
from each national disaster agency who are recruited and trained to team up when an
incident occurs and assistance is requested. To operate effectively, ERAT has to follow
SASOP and coordinate well with local agencies. Therefore, the trained personnel of
ASEAN-ERAT are very significant and instrumental to coordinating operations within their own respective national system and on-the-ground during a disaster. This may also
be an effective mechanism for coordinating operations across jurisdictions for those
nations that implement stricter national security mandates. According to an ERAT
official: