Director General of the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) Atul Karwal on Tuesday said that trauma has gripped the rescuers as one of the personnel hallucinated that he was seeing blood and another lost his appetite post the rescue operations at Balasore district in Odisha.
In this backdrop, the NDRF has initiated psychological counselling and mental stability courses for the personnel once they return from a rescue and relief operation where they saw several deaths and victims suffering from excruciating pain.
Nine NDRF teams were deployed for rescue operations following one of the worst railway disasters in India that killed at least 278 people and injured more than 1,100.
According to official data, the force rescued 44 victims and retrieved 121 bodies from the spot.
“I recently met the personnel who were involved in the rescue operation following the Balasore train accident... Someone told me he hallucinated that he was seeing blood every time he saw water. Another said he lost the urge to eat after this rescue operation,” Karwal said.
In his inaugural address at the one-day ‘Annual Conference on Capacity Building for Disaster Response-2023’ being organised by the NDRF at the Vigyan Bhawan here, he said the accident was so severe that the coaches got mangled, trapping several bodies inside.
“Our personnel need to be mentally and physically fit and hence we have included various physical and mental fitness programmes. Counselling sessions are being conducted to ensure good mental health of the rescuers,” he said.
Karwal said such sessions were held for rescuers who came back from Turkiye recently after undertaking operations in the earthquake-hit country.
The NDRF was also in the process of hiring a permanent counsellor in its ranks rather than hiring their services on a temporary basis, he said.
About 95 per cent of the estimated 18,000 personnel-strong force was “fit” after special fitness and health exercises were launched in January last year, Karwal said. The average BMI of 90 per cent of the contingency force was less than 25, an indicator of an individual being physically fit.