| Address during the inauguration of 1st World Congress on Disaster Management, Hyderabad DRDO Experience | | I would like to share my experience of a disastrous earthquake of 6.8 Richter scale intensity which struck Latur in Maharashtra on 30 September 1993. This disaster resulted in over 8000 people killed, 16000 people injured, 52 villages raised to ground, thousands of houses collapsing and large damage to lakhs of houses in neighbouring districts. | |
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| | At that time, I was the Scientific Advisor to Raksha Mantri. Immediately after hearing the information about the earthquake, I had a meeting with my Chief Controllers and launched a rescue mission with the available resources in DRDO laboratories. Immediate cooked food for the victims was airlifted from DFRL Mysore. The process went on number of days till normalcy was restored and cooking arrangement were made available at Latur. Potable drinking water system and temporary shelters were moved from R&D engineers to Latur, so that good water and shelter for the victims can be provided. A team of 20 doctors pooled from number of DRDO laboratories along with para-medical staff and medicines were dispatched to Latur for providing emergency medical care and prevention of epidemic in that region. Satellite based communication system was established by DEAL Dehradun and provided telephone connectivity to various places in the country and ensure availability of information about disaster relief status. NPOL, Kochi sent an instrument for detecting bodies which were buried in debris. The entire DRDO team was working in coordination with the state government authorities and provided relief and rehabilitation support for over a month. I am giving this case study to emphasize that the required resource with necessary connectivity is available in the country. All that we need is the knowledge of availability of the resource and allocate it in time, so that the relief and rehabilitation pain is reduced to a minimum. Similar to DRDO, we have number of CSIR establishments, public sector units, Army-Air Force and Naval establishments, railways establishments and medical establishment are available in different parts of the country. In addition, we have 38 lakh Scouts and Guides, 13 lakh National Cadets Corps and lakhs of NSS volunteers available in the country at different states and districts. | |
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| | Hence an integrated system is required to empanel them, train them and design a communication system, so that their services can be accessed for disaster mitigation and relief operations at short notice. Each organization has to have a disaster code of standards that will empower them to meet any exigencies in the nation for a disaster call. | |
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| | Now I would like to discuss a new mission called Emergency Management Mission, carried out by the Emergency Management and Research Institute (EMRI) which is spreading fast across the length and breadth of the country. | |
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| Emergency Management and Research Institute (EMRI) | | As you may be aware, EMRI have been started from the year 2005 which I would like to share with you. This single action has an impact on a billion lives. Everyday, every-hour, every-minute and every-second, some kind of emergency is occurring. This could be Medical, Police or Fire related. This organization is called EMRI – Emergency Management and Research Institute. This programme started as a corporate social responsibility, of a private enterprise three years ago. | |
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| | It began with the state of Andhra Pradesh, having a population of 80 million people. In Andhra Pradesh it covers an area of 2,75,000 square kilometers and with 652 ambulances. There is a Emergency Response Center located in Hyderabad which receives around 62,000 calls per day out of which 7,000 calls are effective emergency calls in the toll free number 108. As soon as a call is received, ambulance departs within 60 seconds and reaches the site of emergency in an average of 14 minutes if it is an urban area, or 25 minutes in the rural area. A Minimum of 100 qualified professionals is in the control centre attending to the calls received from a toll free number 108 at any point in time. They help control the movement of ambulances with emergency management technicians under the guidance of Emergency Response Center (ERC) Physician as required. The ambulances are equipped with complete life supporting systems and experienced para-medical staff. They ensure that all the vital parameters of the patient are improved and provide pre-hospital care under the direction of experienced doctors stationed at the ERC. It is a pride that this movement is today across 10 states of our country covering approximately 500 million people. | |
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| | The 108 Ambulance movements has become a friend to all the rural and urban citizens of the states that they are operated in. In the three years, EMRI has touched 2 million lives and has saved over 40,000 lives. Our mission is to spread EMRI system to the entire country with a target of saving over one million lives annually by 2010. EMRI is a modern service with high-tech communication system, GPS system, interlinked network with well maintained ambulance system, always waiting to deal with any emergency occurring at any point in the state. EMRI is already participating in the relief operations concerning blast victims. National Disaster Management Authority can make use of EMRI for conducting disaster management operations. Particularly, EMRI can be used for designing training programmes and conducting them for disaster management teams. | |
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| | Yesterday (20 Oct 2008), I chaired the EMRI board meeting at Hyderabad. We had a major discussion about EMRI on what type of contribution it can give during the occurrence of natural disaster and calamities. When we reviewed the excellent performance of EMRI, we found by the year 2009, the EMRI would have established the Emergency Response services in 11 states. We realized EMRI will have at anytime 5,000 well equipped ambulances with life support system from 2009 onwards. Also it has created a unique volunteer force in and around Hyderabad which incorporates around 90,000 people from the rural areas. The board suggested that it is possible to configure the nation as five regions such as Southern region, northern region, eastern region, western region and North-east region with respect to the disaster zones for EMRI Services. Within the 5 region, the profile of disaster is already known to some extend whether natural disaster or any other major manmade disasters. The EMRI board decided after lot of discussion, if any such disaster occurs, minimum 1000 ambulances are fully equipped with the life support system; depending on the nature of the disaster, they will immediately move to the disaster location at short notice to provide emergency services. | |
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| | I would like to offer to the nation that EMRI is indeed can effectively contribute in disaster management, any time in any part of the country. | |
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| Natural Disasters | | Major natural disasters, which have been plaguing through centuries, are floods, cyclones, droughts and earthquakes, which adversely affect the economic system as a whole and more importantly the vulnerable rural economy. India, with its varied geographical, geological and climatic conditions, has faced major disasters- cyclones in the coastal regions of Southern India; floods in the river valleys of Ganges-Yamuna, Brahmaputra, Godavari, Krishna etc; earthquakes in Himalayas, Kutch, NE regions; landslides in the sub-Himalayan regions of north India; drought in the major arid and semi-arid tracts of central/southern India; major diseases like malaria/encephalitis in Delhi, plague in Surat; catastrophes like the Bhopal Gas tragedy, building collapses in Mumbai, fire in Delhi etc. I would like to present Swiss Experience of providing Humanitarian Aid. | |
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| Swiss Experience | | I had an opportunity to study the constitution and functioning of humanitarian aid of the Swiss Confederation during my visit to Switzerland in 2005. The Swiss Humanitarian Aid (SHA) unit is an instrument of the humanitarian aid of the Swiss Confederation for direct activities and in support of international organizations through secondment. The SHA is a voluntary militia corps and comprises a pool of at least 700 operational members who are integrated into specialized groups based on their experience and skills. They are recruited regularly within the private and the public sectors and are possessing high professional skills and social competencies as well as management. They are deployed on a short term tasks either individually or in small team for missions of limited durations. The partners of SHA include adhoc alliances with other countries and organizations, cooperation with public institutions and civil society and civil-military cooperation. The staff at Humanitarian Aid Headquarters at Berns is responsible for conceptualizing, steering, implementing and administering all programmes through their coordinating officers at the affected region, central warehouse where the equipment required for the deployment and regional response teams. The Swiss rescue can be mobilized with a very short notice. It is deployed abroad to search and rescue persons trapped in collapsed building mainly after an earthquake. The Swiss rescue is composed of Swiss Government and Non-Government Agencies, Civil and Military organizations and led by the Humanitarian Aid of the Confederation. I would suggest the participants to discuss the uniqueness of Swiss rescue system and methods so that we can adopt the best features in our future disaster management missions. | |
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| Scientific Contribution of ISRO | | I am glad that ISRO has launched a major programme of Disaster Management Support Programme (ISRO-DMSP) with a Decision Support Centre (DSC) at NRSC providing crucial information on floods, drought, fire as well as impacts due to earthquake. This operational information, I was seeing the power of technology in the damage assessment and relief operation during the recent Kosi river breach by way of places inundated, the course change of the river, identifying areas for relocation, pinpointing locations for air-drops missions and facilitating movement of relief and rescue crew. Now I would like to talk about the Administrative aspects of relief and rehabilitation. | |
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| Nagapattinam Tsunami Experience | | I visited Nagapattinam, during June 2005, which was very badly affected by Tsunami of 26th December, 2004. I could see the vibrancy of the team under the leadership of the District Collector who provided: | |
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| | o Spot decision on all relief measures.
o Daily press briefing for giving accurate information.
o Complaint Cell for missing person started at Collectorate.
o Each team leader and member brought in his capacity and experience coupled with manpower and machines under his control.
o Around 1000 Officers and Staff of Nagapattinam District and 380 from other Districts worked round the clock.
o ·About 200 Army Officers and Jawans and Naval Officials assist the district administration in the rescue and relief operations.
o 1 DIG and 7 Superintendents of Police, 110 Other Police Officials and 1361 other rank Officers monitor the situation and ensure peace in the district.
o 116 Medical Officers with 120 Medical Teams monitor the health parameters.
o 2032 Sanitary workers are engaged in the cleaning operations.
o 69 JCB machines, 30 Poclains, 64 Tipper Lorries, 14 Bulldozers and 13 Cranes are engaged.
o An Exclusive website to trace the dead, injured and missing person created www.tsunami.nagapattinampolice.info
o A database created to track the aid material received, Godown - wise to ensure proper accounting and distribution, based on demand | |
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