Karnataka   

Respond during times of crisis, people urged

DAVANGERE: Director-General of Police and Commandant-General of the Home Guards Jija Madhavan Harisingh said 7,662 people were killed in road accidents in the State last year. The toll in road accidents was greater than that caused by natural disasters such as floods and fire accidents, she said.

“Many lives could have been saved had the people applied commonsense and provided the victims with first aid and specialised medical help,” she said.

Ms. Harisingh said many people were under the false impression that they had to deal with the police and the courts if they came to the victims’ help, and called upon them to help those in distress.

Speaking at a seminar on disaster management at Harihar here on Friday, Ms. Harisingh said many people were ignorant about the methods of administering first aid or what was to be done immediately after a road or fire accident occurred. Even if 1 per cent of the population was to be educated about what to do and what not to do in such scenarios, the number of casualties could be brought down, she said.

The Police Department had chalked out a programme and would organise seminars and workshops on disaster management in all district and taluk headquarters in the State, she said. As many as 244 persons died and 5,730 heads of cattle washed away in the recent floods in the State, she added. Agriculture crops on two lakh hectares and horticulture crops on 34,187 hectares of land had been destroyed.

Rehabilitation and relief camps were opened and the affected people given temporary assistance by the department, she said.

Ms. Harisingh appealed to Vice-Chancellor of Kuvempu University B.S. Sherigar, who was present, to introduce courses on disaster management in all degree colleges so that the youth were made aware of how to respond to such situations.

Mr. Sherigar, who inaugurated the seminar, said students should not be confined to the four walls of the classroom, but should be educated about all aspects of life. He underlined the need to educate students about disaster management and promised that her suggestion would be considered.

Mr. Sherigar said a considerable number of people died in natural calamities. This reflected the need to train youth to respond to an emergency situation effectively. He called upon various academic institutions to prepare a database on natural calamities so that it could alert the authorities about possible earthquakes or floods.

The climate change posed the biggest threat to the humanity and there was an urgent need to educate people on judicious use of natural resources. Deputy Commissioner M.B. Dyaberi spoke. Inspector-General of Police (Eastern Range) Satyanarayana Rao and Superintendent of Police Ravindraprasad were present.

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