328 coastal villages in Odisha to be made tsunami ready
BHUBANESWAR: After setting global benchmarks in cyclone and flood management, Odisha Disaster Management Authority (OSDMA) has embarked on a mission to get ‘Tsunami Ready’ tag for 328 villages in six coastal districts.
While two villages have qualified all the parameters for the tag, at the governing body meeting of OSDMA chaired by Chief Secretary Asit Tripathy here on Thursday, it was decided to expand capacity building activities to 328 tsunami-prone villages considering their vulnerabilities in Indian Ocean region.
Additional Chief Secretary and SRC Pradeep Kumar Jena said Baxipali of Ganjam and Gadaharishpur of Jagatsinghpur district have fulfilled the 11 parameters set by Unicef to be declared as tsunami ready. "The two villages might get the certification soon. Once certified, Baxipali and Gadaharishpur would be first tsunami ready villages among 56 nations in the entire Indian Ocean region," he said.
Reviewing the updates for management of natural disasters, the Chief Secretary directed the officials concerned to undertake repair and maintenance work on multipurpose cyclone and flood shelters before June and start training activities in the State Disaster Management Centre set up in Gopabandhu Academy of Administration here.
The centre would be used as a temporary training facility till completion of the State Institute of Disaster Management (SIDM) being constructed on the campus of Revenue Officers Training Institute (ROTI) at Gothapatana.
SIDM would be a state-of-the-art institution with world class training infrastructure, modules and facilities. It is expected to be completed by March 31. Tripathy directed to have third party quality audit of the entire SIDM project.
He also asked to ensure that the emergency equipment supplied to the shelters are under the direct charge of the respective fire stations for keeping the machines in good working condition.
The SRC said physical audit of the multipurpose cyclone and flood shelters have been completed in 25 districts. At present, 879 shelters are in operation of which 568 are multipurpose cyclone shelters and 311 are multipurpose flood shelters.
OSDMA in collaboration with the US-based firm Earth Networks has also installed six lightning detection sensors in different parts of the State. "Now, map-based lightning alerts are being provided. Earth Networks will do validation of the lightning warnings provided to OSDMA and also monitor the incidents on real time basis," Jena added.
OSDMA Decisions
To undertake repair and maintenance work on multipurpose cyclone and flood shelters before June
To start training activities in the State Disaster Management Centre
To ensure that the emergency equipment supplied to shelters are under direct charge of respective fire stations