Following the 9/11 attacks in the USA 25 years ago, emergency services and mortuary provision in New York were overwhelmed. In response, London established an emergency planning ‘Resilience Team’ to prepare the capital for major disasters.

In this talk, senior resilience and emergency planning specialist Matthew Hogan explores the development of the London Mass Fatality Plan and how London prepares for incidents involving large numbers of fatalities.

Matthew will look at how mass-fatality planning has evolved in response to major incidents, including the Asian Tsunami of 2004 and the London bombings of July 2005. This illustrated talk explores the practical and human realities of temporary mortuary provision, from the recovery and storage of the deceased to viewing areas, family assistance centres and the complex systems required when a disaster overwhelms normal mortuary capacity.

Tickets £12.50 including a delightful Victorian punch and a 20% donation toward a host of restoration projects at Kensal Green Cemetery

Matthew Hogan
Matthew Hogan is a senior resilience and emergency planning specialist whose career has been spent preparing London for the unthinkable. He has led multi-agency responses to major risks and emergencies, including Exercise Unified Response, the largest emergency exercise ever staged in Europe. He developed the innovative ‘Anytown’ methodology for exploring how disasters cascade through the systems on which cities depend and, in 2025, was made a Fellow of the Emergency Planning Society. A contributor to When This Is Over: Reflections on an Unequal Pandemic, Matthew is also the founder of Disaster Tours, exploring how catastrophes have shaped London’s streets, communities and the way the city prepares for events it hopes will never happen.