VANCOUVER, Canada (AFP) - Pretend terrorists released fake radioactive poison here Tuesday in a mock attack staged to prepare authorities for the real thing during the 2010 Olympic Games.

The make-believe was part of the final formal security drill "to confirm that federal, provincial, regional, and municipal organizations are prepared to respond in a coordinated manner to any emergency that may occur during the 2010 Winter Games," said Public Safety Canada.

The week-long exercise in this western Canadian metropolis also includes flyovers by Canadian and American military jets and an incident Thursday at a railway station.

The mock attack involved as many as 2,000 police officers, firefighters, government specialists and military, said Jaimie Tomlinson of Public Safety Canada.

The exercise played out like live theatre in a school playing field in the suburb of Richmond.

Actors pretended to have been poisoned by deadly radioactive isotopes and were rescued by firefighters dressed in hazardous-materials suits who hosed them down in the chilly autumnal air, removed their contaminated outer clothes, and wrapped them in emergency blankets.

"What we have here is a fictional terrorist group planning to disrupt the games in order to draw attention to their cause," said federal spokesman Ted Sykes.

The script concerned a girlfriend reporting her terrorist boyfriend to police, which set in motion an attack in which deadly radioactive isotopes were released in some 20 public places, including a shopping mall and in the school field, where a rally was being held for Canada's hockey team.

Police began a criminal investigation and firefighters raced to the location, as hospitals and medical clinics pretended they were flooded by crowds of contaminated people.

"The threat is also psychological and social," Sykes, of Defence Research and Development Canada, an agency providing scientific support to Canada's military. "It gets very, very complex."

Tomlinson said some 140 different agencies will play a role in security for the games in February, including American emergency specialists. International agencies have also been involved in games security planning, police Sergeant Peter Thiessen told AFP.

Asked if the focus on terrorism and security will scare people away from the games, Tod Townsend of the city of Richmond said, "I think people will be happy that we are prepared to respond to emergencies."

The Games security budget, originally pegged at 175 million dollars after Vancouver was awarded the Olympics, has ballooned to 900 million dollars.

As the mock attack played out in Vancouver, the Olympic torch traveled Tuesday from Vancouver Island in British Columbia to the Yukon Territory, on the fifth day of its 45,000-kilometre (30,000 mile) journey throughout Canada, before the Games open February 12.