Kerala - Kozhikode   

Details of manpower, equipment sought

Kozhikode: The Science and Technology Entrepreneurship Development Project (STEDP), which is preparing a District Disaster Management Plan (DDMP), has asked voluntary agencies and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) to furnish details about the roles they can play in the event of a natural disaster.

STED had collected details of equipment and manpower from government and quasi-government agencies in the district. The contribution of NGOs would also be valuable, STED project director Mohanan Manalil said.

Government departments and NGOs could submit a list of equipment with them, such as gloves tested up to 25,000 volts, inflatable light towers, electric generators, heavy-duty cranes, life jackets, motorboats, breathing apparatuses, stretchers, portable ventilators, mobile blood banks, incubators for children, tractors, trailers and ambulances.

In the July flooding, a rescue team had to wait for nearly four hours for a bulldozer to move rubble from the road. A police team urgently required generators, but the officers had no idea which department to approach during the crisis.

The master plan envisages short and long-term plans. Mock drills will be conducted, apart from monitoring and updating the management plan.

The management team will have a list of schools, police stations, community halls, hospitals and contact numbers. The analysis of the geographical profile will give administrators and local civic body officials a clear picture of the vulnerable regions in the district.

Usually, local bodies give sanction to construct houses in places without knowing whether the region is disaster-prone or not. Sanction is accorded to construct houses at the same spot where disaster had once struck.

Earth scientists divide the district into five major sections. In general, the elevation increases from west to east, the highest being at Vellarimala (2,240 metres).

The sections are: lowlands in the Tikkodi area; midlands in the Nemnada and Kakkodi areas; mid-uplands in the Thiruvambadi and Kunnamangalam areas; uplands in Adivaram; and highland at Menmala and Periya.

The STEDP had identified water resources including the rivers that originate from the Western Ghats and flow into the Arabian Sea. The profiling will identify land as agricultural, barren and fallow, permanent and grazing according to the pattern of use.

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