COIMBATORE: District police plan to soon deploy a drone unit to monitor the Bhavani river in the 40 kilometre stretch between Pillur dam and Sirumugai to alert people and prevent them from getting caught in flash flood. Bhavani river flows in three police station limits Karamadai, Mettupalayam and Sirumugai, covering around 20 villages in the southern part of the district.
“After two drowning incidents in February, we constituted a team exclusively to prevent fatalities in the river. Ten policemen were trained by State Disaster Response Force and deployed to monitor the river from Pillur dam to the backwaters of Bhavanisagar dam (Sirumugai).
The team informs public about the time of water release from the dam and a rescue team is on standby. But we cannot completely stop people from venturing into the river. There are only a few places in each village that are open for public access and those are closed during the flood.
But the people, who visit these areas, enter the riverbank through some private lands. It cannot be monitored by the team at all times. So we plan to deploy a drone to monitor the river,” said a senior police officer. “It will help the team in rescue operations. If anyone went missing in the river water it is difficult to search them. If we have the drone unit, it will be easy to trace their whereabouts,” he added.