Experts stress on disaster preparedness

Tamil Nadu witnessed the tsunami in 2004. Following that, the Tsunami National Disaster Management Act was passed in 2005. Though detailed guidelines were listed in the Act, the state had not learnt any lessons. 

Jones Thomas, Doctoral Research Scholar on Disaster Management at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai, said that disaster mitigation forms the important part of pre-disaster measures and it is important for government to take preventive measures. For instance, in Odisha there are tsunami siren towers in all the coastal hamlets. 

There are several mitigation works to be undertaken such as setting up of a community radio, early warning systems, capacity development, disaster impact assessment, planned development and so on. The State government had failed on all the mitigation fronts and is focusing on rehabilitation works such as evacuation and building houses for political gains, said Jones.

Justin Antony, Founding President, International Fishermen Development Trust (INFIDET), said, as Kanniyakumari dis is repeatedly affected by disasters, marine rescue coordination centre, national disaster management centre, helipads, fast sea boats and so on should be set up.