A mock drill was conducted for an earthquake scenario in Dehradun on Friday. Various departmental officials drafted the action plan for tackling with a post quake scenario under the joint leadership of District magistrate Ravinath Raman and National Disaster Management Authority senior consultant Maj Gen VK Datta (retd) at the emergency operation centre.
All heads of office were issued directions and guidelines to execute their responsibilities in the disaster scenario. The district disaster management nodal officer and ADM (Finance, Revenue) Pratap Singh Shah informed the district’s responsible officer/DM that incident commanders had been directed to reach the four disaster affected areas in the city.
As soon as the earthquake siren was sounded at 8:50 am, the staging area in charge SDM (Civil) dispatched necessary equipment and human resource from the disaster relief centre set up on Parade Ground to the four disaster affected sites- Anandam Complex and CNI Girls College on Rajpur Road, Tehsil building and the Doon Hospital.
Along with the DM, the senior superintendent of police Pushpak Jyoti also inspected the affected areas and checked the preparations. The relief teams consisted of personnel of the army, ITBP, NDRF, SDRF, police, Health Department, Homeguards, Civil Defence and volunteers. The DM said that the mock drill was conducted to check preparations for tackling an earthquake scenario. The programme was useful in establishing coordinated inter-departmental action to tackle the damage in a disaster scenario.
He said that disasters do not come with a warning so it is vital for all to be prepared with necessary resources to face such a situation. All officials will have to work with coordination in such a situation. Officials should properly understand the responsibilities delegated to them so that there is no confusion in a disaster scenario.
There should be no negligence in establishing coordination and any official can be called on to discharge his or her duties in such a scenario. Speaking on the occasion, the State Forest and Wildlife minister Dinesh Aggarwal said that biodiversity is an important issue that requires considerable focus of the Forest Department among others.
Uttarakhand Biodiversity Board chairman Rakesh Shah informed the gathering about the various measures taken by the board towards conservation of biodiversity in Uttarakhand. Former director of GB Pant Institute of Himalayan Environment and Development, lMS Palni and UBB member secretary GS Pandey also expressed their views on the occasion.