A major emergency training exercise which closed off part of Aberdeen has been hailed "a resounding success".

Exercise Bon Accord was the biggest multi-agency emergency exercise ever held in the north-east.

The city's Broad Street was closed off on Wednesday evening as more than 80 fire crew joined police and paramedics for the mock city centre emergency exercise.

The city council's former headquarters, St Nicholas House, became the focus of attention as crew responded to reports of an explosion in the building.

Emergency services were told that a government minister and several councillors were trapped in the burning building, which could be seen with smoke billowing out.

The training exercise was still able to go ahead despite the fact that dozens of fire crew had to respond to three major wildfires across Aberdeenshire earlier in the day.

Chief fire officer David Dalziel said: "The exercise planners found themselves tested for real in getting crews from across the area brought in to Aberdeen, exactly as if this had been a live incident.

"The crews did very well. The exercise, as expected, brought up a few learning points that are being looked at by our operations teams, but there really was nothing of particular note."

Area manager David Rout, head of operations said: "There was a huge amount of planning and organisation in getting this exercise together while keeping the details from the participants.

"The teams displayed a very professional approach to the incident and our observers felt that they were treating it as a real event and not a training exercise.

"We saw several instances of excellent practice throughout the evening and these will be added to our lessons learned to share across the service."