Proper planning helped negate impact of cyclones: Mukherjee

Proper planning and pre-emptive arrangements by the government negated the impact of the last two cyclones in the country, President Pranab Mukherjee said Tuesday.

Presiding over the ceremonial session of the Annual General Meeting of the Indian Red Cross Society and St. John Ambulance, Mukherjee said in most advanced societies governments as well as non-governmental organisations have taken the necessary steps to prepare for the kind of unforeseeable eventualities that are called disasters.

"In recent years, India, too, has learned from its experiences and taken similar measures. Thus, while the 1999 super-cyclone caused 10,000 deaths in Odisha, thanks to the pre-emptive arrangements made by government, the negative impact of the last two cyclones in Odisha and Andhra Pradesh resulted in very few casualties," he said.

He said: "We could manage to provide safety and security to maximum number of livestock, people and property located in the path of the approaching storms.

"Our success in doing this demonstrates the significant improvement in our technology, capacity and capability to pre-empt and thus mitigate the devastating effect of natural disasters on our territory".

The president said that India's achievement has been recognized internationally as a triumph of early warning and timely action.

"However, we are aware that more needs to be done; more vulnerable people need to be empowered; they need to have a greater ability to secure and protect themselves," he added.