TN CM's office burnt midnight oil to meet cyclone: IOC

The office of Tamil Nadu Chief Minister worked late at night on December 11 to chalk out plans to meet any contingencies that might arise due to cyclone Vardah that would cross the next day, state-run fuel supplier IOC said on Wednesday.

According to a statement issued by Indian Oil Corporation (IOC), there was a late night request from Chief Minister's office cell for fuel stock to power the 108 ambulance services.

"The team delivered 5KL (5,000 litres) diesel around midnight on 11th December'16 to their premises (Emergency Management and Research Institute)," IOC said in a statement detailing how it managed the cyclone that crossed the Chennai coast on December 12.

Similarly a mobile phone tower company was supplied 100 KL high speed diesel within few hours of request, IOC said.

"If today we are seated here with no disasters at our supply points it is because our IndianOil team and Operations Head were monitoring every movement of Cyclone Vardah with smart technology," said Executive Director U.V.Mannur in the statement.

"We literally had a war room set up at our Adyar Transit location, with high resolution,12 GB RAM laptop and using high speed broadband of BSNL. Real time monitoring of Cyclone Vardah was done using website 'www.earth.nullschool.net', which gave second by second movement of the cyclone," K.S.Rao, Deputy General Manager (Operations) was quoted as saying in the statement.

According to IOC, two days prior to the cyclone's landfall, fuel was supplied to Chennai City Police, Chennai Corporation, Aavin Co-operative Milk, Metropolitan Transport Corporation, and Tamil Nadu State Transport Corporation to help maintain public utility services.

A day before the cyclone landfall, focus was on off-shore supply to Poompuhar Shipping Corporation at Ennore Port to maintain continuous supply of coal to the thermal plants.

--IANS

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