Mega mock drill on earthquake conducted across State

Correspondents

Haflong: The District Disaster Management Authority (DDMA), in association with the National Disaster Management Authority and Assam State Disaster Management Authority, conducted a mega mock drill in Haflong along with police, defense personnel, fire fighters and all line departments and volunteers on Thursday. Prior to today’s mock exercise, a table top exercise was also conducted on Wednesday with an aim to review the disaster management plan along with identifying gaps and to enhance coordination among the stakeholders and responding agencies following the principle of Incident Response System (IRS) at State and district level.

Today’s mock drill was simultaneously performed at five different locations like Deputy Commissioners office, Waimijing Club building, Girls’ Higher Secondary School, Don Bosco Higher Secondary School and Haflong Civil Hospital/ Holy Spirit Hospital.

As a part of the mock exercise, different situations were staged such as setting up of staging area, incident base, District Emergency Operation Centre (DEOC), incident command post, rescue operation team, medical, logistic, media and information. As many as 150 participants, including officials from various departments, army, CRPF and police personnel, school students, teachers, NGOs and clubs performed the mock drill with full enthusiasm and co-ordination. Such a mega mock drill to check preparedness of earthquake has been conducted in Dima Hasao and the entire State for the first time.

NAGAON: District Disaster Management Authority, Nagaon on Wednesday launched a series of mock drill exercises in various places of the town for earthquake and other natural calamities in order to create awareness among people and ensure protective measures in order to reduce possible fatalities during calamities. According to sources, during the mock drill exercises all agencies concerned, including SDRF, fire, police, CRPF personnel and medical staff of the district displayed their emergency services for rescue and protection of life.

Deputy Commissioner Biswajit Pegu, Superintendent of Police Shankarbrata Raimedhi and other top officials of the agencies concerned were present in the mock drill exercises. The various teams in fractions of groups at a time performed the mock drill exercises at consecutively five places like the DC office, Pioneer College, Nagaon, Indian Moll and GD Nursing Home at Hoiborgaon. The exercises were supervised by DC Biswajit Pegu and SP Shankarbrata Raimedhi.

TINSUKIA: The District Disaster Management Authority Tinsukia in collaboration with ASDMA and NDMA had conducted a Mock Exercise on Earthquake disaster in 5 places of Tinsukia town on Thursday where the district administration, Police, NDRF, SDRF, Fire and Emergency Services, Health dept, Civil Defence, Education dept, Municipal Board, Army, CRPF, DTO, NCC, NSS, local sports club participated. The casualties of the Mock Exercise were shifted to LGB civil hospital and were given treatment. A temporary relief shelter was also opened at Boys ITI field to give shelter to the evacuated people and to give relief etc. The programme was overall a success and general public were sensitised on the disaster preparedness.

KOKRAJHAR: Along with the rest of the State, the Kokrajhar district administration also conducted mock exercise on earthquake disaster in five different locations in Kokrajhar town on Thursday. The Deputy Commissioner along with other district-level key stakeholders of Kokrajhar district participated in the major disaster mock drill that started from Government HS and MP School playground here. During the programme, all the issues relating to the mock exercise was done and elaborately discussed.

District Disaster Management Authority, Kokrajhar in collaboration with State Disaster Management Authority and National Disaster Management Authority organized the major earthquake simulation drill on Thursday in Kokrajhar with the aim and objective of reviewing disaster management plan and responsibilities of various stakeholders of the district at five identified venues like Bazaar India, City Life, Hotel Gaurang Valley, Kendriya Vidyalaya and RN Brahma Civil Hospital.

During the exercise, the siren was blown all throughout Kokrajhar town at 10 am and was done with the assumption that an earthquake of greater magnitude had hit Kokrajhar and accordingly, the District Emergency Operation Centre (DEOC) was activated under the command of Responsible Officer (RO) Partha Pratim Mazumdar, who is also the Deputy Commissioner of the district.

Tezpur: An exercise on earthquake disaster was held in Tezpur on Thursday conducted jointly by the Disaster Management Authority, Sonitpur, National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) in collaboration with Assam State Disaster Management Authority (ASDMA). An earthquake scenario was recreated at 10am and on receipt of the information the Responsible Office (DC) activated the Incident Response System (IRS) and all members of the district Incident Response Team (IRT) assembled at the District Emergency Operations System (DEOC). Of the four venues selected for the exercise, a scenario of building collapse was recreated at the LGBRI of Mental Health, while a fire at District Treasury Office, a stampede at District Library due to large congregation of people and a scenario of chaos and injury at NC Hotel was recreated for the purpose of the mock exercise.

All rescue and relief teams were mobilized from the staging area at Church Field and deployed for rescue and relief operations. Ambulances and fire tenders were mobilized as per requirement. Response teams from police, civil defense, SDRF/ Fire Services, Army, SSB were engaged for rescue and evacuation efforts. Traffic was regulated and police personnel deployed for law and order. A hotwash or review was also conducted via video conference later in the day. A table top exercise in this connection was held via video conference with all Deputy Commissioners on December 19 where all notified members of the Incident Response Team (IRT) of each district took part.

Joysagar: “Natural calamities like earthquake are very serious challenges for the administration. The government agencies that are subject to serve in the calamity-hit areas as rescuers should be ever ready and also well trained and well equipped,” said Sivasagar Deputy Commissioner PG Jha while addressing a special rescue mock drill programme on Thursday.

The DC was speaking in the closing function of the special mock drill which started on Wednesday. The mock drill exercises were conducted in the Sivasagar DC’s office, Samprittee Hospital, Style Bazar, ONGC GGS-2 of Bahtiapara and other few sites and concluded on Thursday.

Also Read: Mock drill on quake on December 20 by District Disaster Management Authority