Call for research in cyclone disaster mitigation and preparedness
CHENNAI: National guidelines for the management of cyclones are likely to be released by November-end, M. Shashidhar Reddy, Member of the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA), said here on Tuesday.
Mr. Reddy, who inaugurated a national conference on wind engineering organised by the Indian Society for Wind Engineering and the Structural Engineering Research Centre, told The Hindu that the guidelines would form the basis for national and State plans on disaster management. Noting that the guidelines were being formulated by the NDMA for every specific disaster, he said those for earthquakes and industrial and chemical disasters had been published.
The guidelines for floods were under preparation.
Earlier, he told the conference that 68 per cent of land mass in the country was prone to drought, 59 per cent to earthquake; 12 per cent to floods and 8 per cent to cyclone.
As for disaster management, there was a paradigm shift in the approach of authorities from relief-centric to more holistic.
He emphasised the need for failure analysis and formulation of solutions, worked out on the basis of such an analysis. He called for concerted research and development efforts in the field of cyclone disaster mitigation and preparedness.
K.C. Mehta, professor, Texas Tech University, called upon the wind engineering community to interact with experts of other disciplines such as civil, mechanical and electrical engineers, systems experts, meteorologists and economists. He said society expected the community to provide safe and reliable environment for physical infrastructure.
Prem Krishna, former president of the Society, traced the growth of the organisation.
N. Lakshmanan, Director of the SERC, said the losses caused by the 1996 Kakinada cyclone and 1999 super cyclone of Orissa ran into several thousand crore of rupees.
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