KSU urges government to conduct mock drill on quake

A REPORTER

SHILLONG, May 3: Following the recent sequence of tremors occurring in the region and based on the fact that the state of Meghalaya and the entire North eastern region falls under the seismic zone V, the Khasi Students’ Union (KSU), today met Principal Secretary of Disaster Magement, PW Ingty and urged the government to carry out more mock drills in the state.

Speaking to reporters KSU, Education cell chairman, Dold V Thabah said that in recent months already 16 spates of tremors had occurred in the region and two of them being a major one which has created a feeling of extreme fear among the masses. “So to spread awareness among the people to deal with such disaster, mock drill should be conducted,”

He also said that even though the state government has conducted mock drills in the state, these Mock drills have failed to serve the purpose as the involvement of the people and students at large were very low.

“Most of the time during these mock drills only some SDRF, NDRF workers are being involved and people are just onlookers, bystanders etc, and has no knowledge and any first hand information,” he said.

“We urged the department concerned that such mock drills should be carried out on a large scale involving the general public from all walks of life,” he added.

“We demanded the government and department concerned to take this matter seriously so that we will be able to tackle such kind of disaster,” he said adding that the principal secretary has assured that his department will surely look into the matter and to involve the schools, colleges including government employees and people at large.

He further said that it is a known fact that most of the schools and hospital lacks an emergency exit and if a major earthquake occurs, it will be very difficult to deal with such a disaster. Thabah said that the Principal Secretary has assured that he would look into the matter at the earliest.