Indian ocean-wide tsunami mock exercise conducted in Odisha

September 5, 2018 Environment

Bhubaneswar: The Indian ocean-wide tsunami mock exercise (IOWave 18) was conducted on Wednesday in 328 tsunami prone villages and urban local bodies in six coastal districts of Odisha to improve the preparedness level against the tsunami disaster.

The exercise is an international event coordinated by Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission (IOC), UNESCO in which Odisha participated as a part of tsunami preparedness for the community.

In India, the exercise is coordinated by Indian Tsunami Early Warning Centre (ITEWC) housed at the Indian National Centre for Ocean Information Services (INCOIS), Hyderabad with support from National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) and Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA), Government of India.

The purpose of the exercise is to increase tsunami preparedness, evaluate response capabilities and improve coordination mechanism at a different level.

It will provide an opportunity to exercise operational lines of communications, exercise the Standard Operating Procedure (SOP), review Tsunami warning and emergency response procedures and to promote emergency preparedness.

In order to conduct the mock exercise successfully, a series of preparatory activities have been organized by OSDMA.

The state-level preparatory meeting with Table Top Exercise was conducted on August 18 in OSDMA. Officers from six coastal districts, ODRAF, NDRF, Indian Coast Guard, OSDMA and SRC Office participated in the programme.

The district level orientation programme was conducted on 24th and 25th August in all the 6 coastal districts. The State level Orientation Programme of Block level facilitator was organized by OSDMA on August 29.

The facilitators were mobilized to 22 tsunami prone blocks in 6 coastal districts for sensitizing Block level officials, community volunteers, PRI members and local govt. officials for conducting the exercise. Block Level Orientation programme for the community level facilitators was conducted on 31st August at the respective blocks.