Workshop on Disaster Scenario of the North East gets Underway

The Workshop on “Disaster Scenario of the North East” began at Guwahati today. Shri M. Shashidhar Reddy, Vice Chairman, National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) stressed upon the need for preparedness and mitigation activities in the region to face the challenges of natural disasters in the region in general, and flood and earthquake in particular. Unique geo-environmental setting of the North East Region vis-à-vis the Eastern Himalayas, weak geological formations, very high seismicity and heavy annual precipitation makes the region one of the most disaster prone regions in the country, he said.

The entire North East region lies in seismic zone V. The region has experienced a total of 17 earthquakes having magnitude 7 and above on the Richter scale in the past hundred years. The region has also experienced two major earthquakes in the year 1897 and 1950 of intensities 8.7 and 8.5 on Richter scale respectively. Shri Reddy pointed out, “Generally, major disasters have been the eye-openers and work as catalyst for initiating preparedness and mitigation activities. 

Presently, a majority of the buildings constructed in the North East, especially in semi-urban and rural areas are non-engineered and built without adhering to earthquake resistant design principles. “This is a matter of great concern to all of us”, he said. 

Now we are faced with two major challenges – one, selective retrofitting of the existing life line structures like school, hospitals etc and, two, incorporating the disaster resilient features in all future projects in both public and private sector. All these steps are not going to be enough. Number of homes covered in India is only about 0.3 per cent. Despite the introduction of the Turkish Catastrophe Risk Pool and the compulsory Earthquake Insurance Scheme in 1999 in Turkey, coverage for residential buildings is only 18%. 

Shri Reddy said that there was a need for massive public awareness campaigns. Generating public awareness can lead to crystallization of administrative and political will. National Earthquake Risk Mitigation Project (NERMP) has been conceptualized as a comprehensive project. NERMP will mainly focus on capacity building including training of architects, engineers and masons. Public awareness will also be a major component of this project. 

NDMA has prepared guidelines with extensive consultation with all the stakeholders. Now the onus is on the States and their line Departments to prepare plans based on these guidelines. Line Departments should appoint a Nodal Officers to coordinate this. Today, agency-wise action points for management of Earthquake, Flood and Urban Flooding is being handed over to the State Government Officials. In this, we have brought out what the States have to do. Shri Reddy called upon them to take all necessary steps.

The State release of the National Guidelines on Management of Urban Flooding, which was released sometime back in Delhi, was done by Shri Reddy during the inaugural session. Shri Reddy said “urban flooding is significantly different from riverine flooding in the rural areas.” This is the first ever document prepared in India to look at Urban Flood disaster management holistically and highlighted the salient action points. 

Referring to a decision by the Guwahati Municipal Corporation to clean all city drains by June to combat the menace of artificial floods during the monsoon, Shri Reddy felt that June would be too late. He referred to the National Guidelines on Urban Flooding which recommends that Pre-Monsoon De-silting of Drains must be completed before March 31 every year; so that it can be ensured that all residual cleaning work is completed before the onset of the monsoon. 

Courtesy : PIB