PUDUCHERRY:A team from Hyderabad-based Indian National Centre for Ocean Information Services (INCOIS) was here recently as part of the work on multi-hazard vulnerability mapping of the coastal as well as the inland areas of Puducherry town.
The team members travelling in a car fitted with modern technical gadgets surveyed the areas of Vaithikuppam, Kurichikuppam, parts of White Town, where the heritage structures are located. They revealed that the mapping is being done keeping coastal hazards like rise in sea level in the event of a Tsunami, wave action.
INCOIS Director, Satheesh C Shenoi, speaking to Express over phone from Hyderabad said that the multi-hazard vulnerability mapping of around 3,600 square kilometres of coastal areas are being planned, out of which nearly 500 kilometres have been mapped so far.
He said once the mapping process is over, INCOIS would come out with 3D Geographic Information System (GIS) maps, which would help civic authorities to pin point the vulnerable coastal areas in the event of Tsunami. He said the local and disaster management agencies could use the 3D GIS maps to initiate measures to evacuate people from the vulnerable areas when a warning about Tsunami, other natural disasters was issued.
Revealing that a pilot project of the mapping was done in Nagapattinam district of Tamil Nadu three years back and the details of the extensive surveys, mapping process were being analysed by the experts. “This pilot project formed basis of the mapping process,” he said.
Satheesh Shenoi said the mapping process is being done at a slow process as INOCIS needed to get sanctions from many local agencies, which is often received with a delay.
The tsunami killer waves struck the Indian coastal areas on December 26, 2004 and over 16,000 people perished in the Andaman and Nicobar islands and along the eastern coast of India.