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Maharashtra equipped to deal with disaster management

Nidhi Taparia in Bombay

"If this earthquake had happened in Maharashtra, we would have been better equipped to deal with it, thanks to our 40 disaster management centres," says Professor Vinod Chandra Menon, who currently heads Maharashtra's Centre of Disaster Management at YASHDA, Pune.

After being caught unawares by the Latur earthquake in September, 1993 -- more than 10,000 people died -- this programme was sponsored by the United Nations Development Programme and the World Bank for the government of Maharashtra. Today, this programme has a statewide network of 40 centers and has linked 40,000 villages and over 70,000 talukas in Maharashtra.

rediff.com spoke to Menon just before he left for Ahmedabad to monitor the situation.

"The programme, with it hi-fi systems and increased response time, helps us in the golden hour -- the first hour after any calamity strikes. It helps us react much faster and in a much more organised fashion to the disaster. With our updated inventory of knowing everything about these 40,000 villages and 70,000 talukas, we are capable of dealing with any situation." The database includes information on the geographical information systems, ambulances, blood banks, doctors and resources on hand.

Talking about the disaster management programme, which is worth a few crores, the professor says, "Currently there are four main centers -- Nagpur, Amravati, Pune and Bombay -- with officers manning them on a 24 hour basis. We are continuously monitoring the situation through satellites, hotlines, e-mail, video-conferencing and wireless systems; this information is available to all the district collectors. At present, we have 40 sub-centres; soon, we will have 200 such centres.

"The disaster management system has been tested," says Menon, "by flash floods and by the disasters we have seen in the last few months." Now that it has succeeded in Maharashtra, they have approached the government of Orissa with the same programme. They are also part of the National Disaster Management Committee, headed by the ministry of agriculture's former secretary, G C Pant. "We started work on the National Calamity Act late last year. It should come into being in the next few months," says Menon.

He highlights the importance of the local authorities. "There are some situations for which the local administration has to be responsible. Take, for example, the case of the 30 children who were buried alive when their school in Ahmedabad collapsed. If the local authorities had insisted on a seismologically safe design and roof -- these are available at a marginally higher cost -- all this could have been avoided."

Menon adds that a large number of training courses have been conducted, where non-government organisations, welfare organisations, volunteers and other government officials learn to handle such disasters. "We are trying our level best to involve the common man because, eventually, he is the one who can make or break this programme."

The Complete Coverage

EXTERNAL LINKS
The RD Killer Quake of Jan 26, 2001: Technical details
All about earthquakes in India and their impact
India Meteorological Department's earthquake reports
Disaster relief set-up in India
Major earthquakes across the world in recent times
A post-quake volunteer's unusual tryst with the departed
Earthquake News: Web site offering comprehensive news, information and features
Earthquake site map
USGS: Earthquake Hazards Program

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