Control room for disaster management to be set up

C. John David, State Project Officer, Disaster Risk Management, United Nations Development Fund, addressing Corporation officials in the cityi on Friday. Photo: K. Ganesan

An emergency operation centre for disaster management in the State will be established soon in Chennai, said C. John David, State Project Officer, United Nations Development Funds (UNDP).

The control room, under the Disaster Risk Reduction Programme 2010-2012, funded by the UNDP and implemented by the Union Ministry of Home Affairs, will have state-of-the-art facilities, better data base on disasters, alternative communication system and trained manpower.

Talking to

The Hindu here on Friday, Mr. David said that officials from the State had visited the control rooms set up in Mumbai, New Delhi and at a place in Gujarat. “We will take the best practices of these three centres,” he said.

Though control rooms were functioning at the State and district levels during emergency situations in Tamil Nadu, the new control room would focus on streamlining the functioning on the three mentioned factors. The data base available at present was only a collection of information on past disasters.

“But now it will have additional details like the time and effects of the disasters and relief works taken up to know a clear trend of disasters so that we can anticipate calamities in a state of preparedness (to mitigate their effects)” Mr. David said.

Stating that landline and mobile phones often fail during calamities, either due to uprooted towers or network congestion, he said that the new control room would concentrate on alternative communication systems. HAM radios came handy during tsunami relief works, he said. People would also be trained on using very high frequency wireless radios.

Handling of emergency situation while sitting in the control room was the essential component in disaster management. For such a delicate job, trained manpower that can effectively use the available data base, communication channels and other resources was critical, he said.

Mapping exercise

Discussing with the Corporation engineers and medical officers, Mr. David said that under the first phase of the three-year programme, the State was preparing a city-specific and district-specific disaster management plan by taking up risk and vulnerability mapping exercise. The work would be completed by November.

Corporation Deputy Commissioner K. Tharpagaraj said that a toll-free telephone would be set up at the city control room. Chief Engineer K. Sakthivel said that road accident was the worst hazard in Madurai city, for which he sought a mitigation plan.

The Corporation officials identified flood, road accidents, fire and break-out of epidemic and lightning as the possible hazards that could affect Madurai. They also listed out vulnerable locations. City Health Officer Subramanian was present.