The Kerala Fire and Rescue Services and Kerala Civil Defence have joined hands to form an adventure club in Ernakulam district.
The State government had ordered the formation of such clubs in every district after a hiker was trapped in a crevice in Palakkad and an Army team had to be roped in to rescue him. At the time, coordinating and deploying an expert team capable of rescue work on such a terrain had proved a handicap.
“At present, the adventure club has nearly 30 members, including 10 from the Fire and Rescue Services and 15 civil defence volunteers. Out of the civil defence volunteers, five have undergone training in adventure courses from recognised institutes in the country. We are in the process of mobilising more expert hands and arranging continuous training programmes, including for fire and rescue personnel,” said Binu Mitran, divisional warden of Kerala Civil Defence in Ernakulam.
The members of the club will operate under the direct command of District Fire Officer K. Harikumar, who is also the nodal officer for the adventure club, and station officers of the fire and rescue stations concerned.
The maiden training-cum-awareness programme of the adventure club will be held at Kothamangalam on June 4. It will feature the basics of rock climbing and rescue works. Various facets of the activity such as rappelling, jumaring, techniques of handling ropes, and using the same philosophy of rescue work in mountainous terrain for rescuing people trapped in vertical buildings will be dealt with on the occasion.
The event is expected to help identify those with the right aptitude and skill sets for the activities. They will then be trained in handling specialised equipment and rescue works related to adventure activities.
“The idea is to organise monthly events and training programmes to keep the club members constantly engaged. The possibility of even organising an artificial rock climbing competition to bring about an element of competitiveness into the proceedings is also being explored,” said Mr. Mitran who has been selected for an advance course at the Himalayan Mountaineering Institute in Darjeeling after having completed the basic course with an ‘A’ grade.
The district has 4,600 civil defence volunteers across 18 fire and rescue stations with more volunteers joining the force. Each station is expected to have 50 active volunteers and as many of them as reserve. Out of the available volunteers, 590 have received State-level training, and 900 district level training, while the rest have undergone station-level training.
