Haridas, a geologist working with an NGO in Kochi, was attending a seminar on climate change in the picturesque township of Dhulikhel in Nepal, when a 7.8 magnitude quake hit the Himalayan nation. He, however, escaped unhurt along with other participants.
With most communication lines completely destroyed, Dr. Haridas, however, was unable to convey this message to his concerned family members back in Kerala.
Fortunately, he had access to the world’s first, and still most reliable, wireless technology – an impromptu ham radio station, upon reaching Kathmandu, a couple of days later.
As ham radio operators are doing their best to make a connection with quake-ravaged Nepal, amateur radio enthusiasts from Kerala have been also part of the initiative.
As soon as he heard about the disaster, Sarath Chandran knew that the best way to get detailed information was to go to his workstation. A member of the Space Rays Amateur Radio Club, he has led a team of four ham radio operators and received calls from families of a few missing persons from Kerala and other states.
“Apart from the family of Dr. Haridas, we received messages from frantic families from other cities such as Bengaluru and Mumbai,” he said.
The team opened a local ham radio station on a direction received from the District Collectorate in Thrissur. “In addition to a couple of alert calls, we also relayed several message received from other parts of the country to Nepal and to the opposite direction,” he added.
A licensed amateur radio operator group since the 1990s, the team was part of other rescue missions on several occasions before. “This is not the first time that we have come forward to do the needful. We were part of such missions during the Gujarat earthquake, the tsunami and Uttarakhand floods,” said Sree Murugan, who coordinated the operation.
With the rescue operation in Nepal reaching its final stages, the team plans to wind up their operations by Monday.
“We will be filing a report in this regard to the District Collector and will close down the station upon receiving a formal nod from the official,” Mr. Murugan said.