BHUBANESWAR: Odisha has achieved a crucial milestone in strengthening community-based disaster preparedness, with 100 coastal villages now declared as ‘tsunami ready’ under the UNESCO-IOC Tsunami Ready Recognition programme.
In 2024, Chief Minister Mohan Charan Majhi had envisioned to strengthen preparedness of all tsunami-prone coastal villages in the state. Working towards this vision, Odisha State Disaster Management Authority (OSDMA) expanded the UNESCO-IOC Tsunami Ready Recognition programme to six coastal districts of the state.
The programme is a community performance-based initiative that promotes tsunami preparedness through collaboration among government authorities, scientific institutions, community leaders and emergency management agencies. It is being implemented in 22 countries in the Indian Ocean region, including India.
This year, 75 additional villages received the recognition, taking the total to 100. Officials said the state achieved a significant milestone towards the larger goal of preparing all 381 tsunami-prone coastal villages and habitations in a phased manner.
They said the achievement reflected the government’s sustained emphasis on scientific disaster preparedness, community participation and building resilient coastal communities.
The members of the National Tsunami Ready Board (NTRB) carried out field verification of the state’s coastal villages on Saturday and Sunday. After the field verification, they briefed Revenue and Disaster Management minister Suresh Pujari about their observations.
On Monday, a meeting of NTRB was held here under the chairmanship of Indian National Centre for Ocean Information Services (INCOIS) director Balakrishnan Nair and managing director of OSDMA Rajesh Prabhakar Patil. During the meeting, the senior officials reviewed the field verification carried out by the Board across coastal villages in six districts of the state.
The NTRB members appreciated the active participation of local communities, their awareness and knowledge about tsunami hazards, their readiness to respond to an emergency and the state’s continued efforts to translate scientific early-warning systems and disaster-management protocols into effective community-level preparedness.
