Six Odisha districts participate in Tsunami preparedness mock drill

Half-a-dozen of Odisha

districts on Tuesday participated in the annual mock drill for Tsunami preparedness in the Indian Ocean region, a top official said.

The mock drill, also referred as the Indian Ocean wide Tsunami Mock Exercise (IOWave20), was this time limited due to the prevailing COVID-19 pandemic situation, to test communication channels instead of full exercise, said P.K. Jena, Additional Chief Secretary and Managing Director, Odisha State Disaster Management Authority (OSDMA).

The mock drill was conducted marking the International Day for Disaster Reduction Tuesday in the districts of Balasore, Bhadrak, Kendrapara, Jagatsinghpur, Puri and Ganjam.

The Special Relief Commissioner, OSDMA, District Collectors, ADMs, BDOs, Tehsildars and Sarpanchs of six districts participated in the drill.

"It was a table-top exercise that focussed on Information Dissemination, said Jena, adding that the basic objective of this years drill was to measure how quickly and effectively a tsunami warning can reach to the village level.

As part of the drill, the OSDMA sounded sirens at 122 alert centres three times, first at 9:30 am, then at 9:45 am and later at 10 am. Emergency alert messages were also sent from the State Emergency Operation Centre to check the effectiveness of the system, Jena said.

Efforts were also made to reach the people through, social media, fax and e-mails to see the effectiveness of information dissemination, Jena said.

This is an international event coordinated by Intergovernmental Coordination Group for Indian Ocean Tsunami Warning and Mitigation System (ICG/IOTWMS) of UNESCO-IOC.

In India, the exercise is coordinated by Indian National Centre for Ocean Information Services (INCOIS). It has been decided to conduct the exercise in two phases in India, the official said.

In the Phase-1 on October 13, for East Coast of India and Andaman Nicobar Islands and Phase -2 on October 20 for the West Coast of India and Lakshadweep Islands.

Jena said Odishas two villages- "Venkatraipur in Ganjam and Nolia Sahi in Jagatsinghpur have been recognised as tsunami ready by UNESCO in the entire Indian Ocean region".