Odisha’s coastal belt to be made Tsunami ready

Bhubaneswar: After setting global benchmarks in cyclone and flood management, Odisha Disaster Management Authority (OSDMA) is now on its way for another hallmark of ‘Tsunami Ready’ Tag for 328 tsunami prone villages of 6 costal districts.

This was discussed in Governing Body Meeting of OSDMA held under the chairmanship of Chief Secretary Asit Tripathy here.

Reviewing the updates for management of natural disasters, Tripathy directed for proper repair and maintenance of the multipurpose cyclone/flood shelters before June, 2020.

He also directed that the emergency equipments supplied to the shelters should be under the direct charge of the respective fire stations for keeping the machines in good working condition.

Further, Tripathy directed to start training activities in State Disaster Management Center already set up in Gopabandhu Academy of Administration.

The Center would be used as a temporary training center till completion of the State Institute of Disaster Management (SIDM), now under construction within the campus Revenue Officers Training Institute (ROTI) at Gothapatana.

SIDM would be a State of Art Institution with world class training infrastructure, training modules and facilities. Target was set to complete construction of the building by 31st March, 2021.

The Chief Secretary directed to have third party quality audit of the entire SIDM project.

Additional Chief Secretary Pradeep Kumar Jena appraised that physical audit of the multipurpose cyclone/flood shelters have been completed in all 25 districts.

At present, a total number of 879 shelters are in operation out of which 503 are Multipurpose Cyclone Shelters (MCS), 311 are Multipurpose Flood Shelters (MFS) and 65 are the MCS constructed by Indian Red Cross Society.

It was decided to complete repair works before June, 2020. It was also decided to fix lightning arrester system in all the shelters.

Jena said, “OSDMA in collaboration with USA based firm “Earth Networks” has installed six lightning detection sensors in different parts of the State. The system gives prediction of the lightning about 30 to 45 minutes in advance”. 

Map based lightning alerts are provided. It was decided that Earth Networks will do validation of the lightning warnings provided to OSDMA and would also monitor the lightning incidents on real time basis. 

Considering the vulnerabilities of the villages in Indian Ocean region, Chief Secretary Tripathy directed to expand capacity building activities to 328 Tsunami prone villages of Odisha. 

It was decided to achieve ‘Tsunami Ready’ tag for these villages by fulfilling the 11 parameters set by UNICEF.

Jena appraised, “in the meanwhile 2 villages namely Baxipali of Ganjam district and Gadaharishpur of Jagatsingpur district have qualified all the parameters.