BHUBANESWAR: In order to enforce disaster management techniques, the BMC would soon set up a squad which would inspect malls, market complexes and high-rise buildings in the City on regular intervals.
This was decided at a workshop on ‘City-Level Disaster Management Plan’ held at BMC office here on Wednesday.
The enforcement squad will not only survey the support structure of buildings to fight any fire-related emergency but also ensure proper space around the buildings so that fire tenders can have easy access while fighting fire. Odisha Fire Services personnel and Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation officials observed that a number of high-rises and multi-storey buildings lacks precise disaster management, rescue plan and equipment. In other places, though the buildings have disaster handling equipment, the inmates lack training to use those at emergency hours. The Fire Services officials stressed on the significance of having a proper fire and disaster handling mechanism, citing examples of recent fire at Unit I Haat and at a shopping mall near Maharishi College Road.
“With petrol pumps located close to both these places, the incidents could have spelled disaster had the fire not been controlled in time,” Fire Officer TK Babu said. Officials of Directorate of Factories and Boilers and several line departments present at the workshop hinted at threats from earthquakes as the City is sitting on an earth crust over Zone III.
“Even different agencies are not equipped with adequate gas cutters to cut iron rods of huge buildings in case any earthquake hits the City. It is very important to form a strategic and command-centric mechanism to have a practical force to fight disasters,” a BMC official said. It was decided that stakeholders of the disaster mitigation squad will be instructed to seek inputs from different departments and prepare a real-time document for action oriented results.