BHUBANESWAR: On Wednesday, people in the coastal districts of Jagatsinghpur, Kendrapara and Puri were surprised to learn that there was a “tsunami alert” for the region. Their concern intensified when they saw officials on job and people being shifted to coastal shelters. They were pacified only when someone told them it was a mock drill, part of an exercise that was being carried out in 20 countries simultaneously on the day. The Orissa State Disaster Management Authority (OSDMA) conducted the mock tsunami drills in the cyclone shelters of six coastal districts of the State to test the Indian Ocean Tsunami Warning and Mitigation System (IOTWS). The exercise was purported to evaluate the system’s operational capacity, efficiency of communication among the different agencies and the state of preparedness of emergency services. Six strategically located districts, which could be vulnerable to tsunami, were chosen for the drill which was a re-enactment of the December 26, 2004 tsunami that followed a 9.2 magnitude earthquake off the North West coast of Sumatra. Purunabandha in Ganjam, Narsinghpurpatna in Puri, Pipal in Jagatsinghpur, Ramnagar in Kendrapara, Nuagaon in Bhadrak and Krushnanagar in Balasore were selected as the evaluation centres for Exercise IOWAVE-11. OSDMA received the first tsunami bulletin at 6.30 am. It immediately passed on the bulletin to the district Emergency Operation Centres and soon after, the local stakeholders were sent SMSes. At about 7.15 am, after the warning message was disseminated, emergency sirens were set off at the cyclone shelters. Local volunteers and task force members started spreading warning messages and people started moving to cyclone shelters. The OSDMA then held awareness programmes at the cyclone shelters. Similarly, search and rescue exercises were held by the task force members of the cyclone shelters during the drill. Physically challenged persons and older people were moved to the shelters by Handicap International volunteers and task force team members. Subsequent bulletins issued by Indian National Centre for Ocean Information Service (INCOIS), Hyderabad, were relayed to the community as well as local administration. The local community, task force members, Cyclone Shelter Management and Maintenance Committee (CSMMC), Village Disaster Management Committees (VDMCs), PRI representatives and volunteers of the tsunami-prone areas took part in the exercise, OSDMA Managing Director Bichitrananda Das said.
Comments
0 comment