BHUBANESWAR : On Wednesday afternoon, Rajmahal Square, a bustling commercial centre of Bhubaneswar, had all the shops shut. At 4 pm, a siren went off and within no time, people on the busy Janpath were down on the road with public address systems blaring instruction to citizens to move to safety, as if an air raid was coming in.
As all of India checked civil defence preparedness in wake of the Pahalgam terror attack, Bhubaneswar and 11 other centres too, joined the massive mock drill on the day.
The exercise, first-of-its-kind since the 1971 war, was held in Talcher, Balasore, Koraput, Gopalpur, Hirakud, Paradip, Rourkela, Bhadrak, Dhenkanal, Jagatsinghpur and Kendrapara apart from Bhubaneswar.
In the state capital, the well-planned mock drill aimed to prepare the authorities and citizens for large-scale emergencies, was organised between Rajmahal Square and Sishu Bhawan Square. Volunteers of various departments and civilians who participated in the drill could be seen taking cover on the roads.
To bring in a factor of realness in the rehearsal, firecrackers were burst on the spot to give an impression of bombardments by the enemy. The second siren went off after 15 minutes to signal that the air raid attack was averted.
It was followed by a massive evacuation by multiple agencies and Odisha Fire and Emergency Service along with civil defence volunteers to rescue the injured civilians from the buildings using bamboo ladders and ropes. While the fire fighters, civil defence volunteers and NCC cadets shifted the injured to the ambulances, fire tenders arrived at the drill zone to douse the blaze caused due to the bombings. As part of the exercise, the area was secured and a detail assessment of the damages was carried out by the authorities.
NSS and local volunteers, scouts, 120 Infantry Battalion personnel and others participated in the exercise. The state-level control room for the mock drill was set up at Emergency Response Support System centre in Bhubaneswar and about 4,000 personnel were mobilised for the exercise in the 12 locations. The sight of emergency vehicles, uniformed personnel and rescue operations made the mock drill look real but crowd control could have been better.
Odisha Fire and Emergency Service DG Sudhansu Sarangi said, the performance of the exercise will be thoroughly examined to find the gaps and ascertain the requirements to strengthen the state civil defence. “This was just a first step towards making the state civil defence more efficient”, he added. Police commissioner S Dev Datta Singh and Bhubaneswar DCP Jagmohan Meena were present.
There are about 1,000 volunteers in the state, but there is requirement of 4,000 to 5,000 more to promptly respond during large-scale hostile situation. The government will review the total number of sirens required in state to alert the citizens in case of an emergency.