To further strengthen disaster management readiness, emergency response and to inculcate the spirit of disaster preparedness among the people news & events national level mock drill by disaster management

1. To
further strengthen disaster management readiness,
emergency response and to inculcate the spirit of
disaster preparedness among the people,
 the Andaman and Nicobar Administration will organise
a mock exercise from November 20-22, 2013 in
coordination with the National Disaster Management
Authority (NDMA), National Disaster Response Force,
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Indian National Centre for Ocean Information Services
(INCOIS), Andaman & Nicobar Command and various
ministries of the Government of India This exercise will
be carried out with two levels of participation.
There will be a level I exercise - a communication test
on November 20, 2013 will involve identified local
communities in South Andaman, North & Middle
Andaman and Nicobar Districts.
The exercise will simulate a 9 Mw earthquake in North
Sumatra region with a depth of 10 Kms which is likely to
result in tsunami and also generate other
complications/hazardous situations in these islands.
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Andaman and Nicobar Islands consist of 556 islands
spread over 750 Kms in the Bay of Bengal, of which 37
islands are inhabited.
The Islands are of gco-strategic importance to the
country and a popular tourist destination.
The location of this territory- in seismic zone V makes
this archipelago vulnerable to earthquakes and tsunami
apart from hydro-meteorological disasters like cyclones,
thunderstorms and cloud bursts.
Earthquakes in 1881, 1941 and most recently on
December 26, 2004 generated tsunami.
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There has been a paradigm shift in disaster management
in the islands from a relief - centric approach to the
present holistic one which includes enhanced
preparedness measures,
mitigation efforts and response mechanism.
However, this requires coordination between different
wings of the Andaman and Nicobar
Administration, various Government agencies and
organisations,
the Panchayati Raj Institutions, the civil society and
citizens at large. .
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Dispersed population over remote islands makes
preparedness at community level a key to effective
response to disaster.
An earthquake of a magnitude greater than 6.5 Mw in
the Andaman-Sumatra subduction zone under certain
circumstances can generate a tsunami,
for which the response time for evacuation of coastal
population can range from 10 minutes to a 30 minutes.
The challeng is therefore to disseminate warning to
vulnerable people as quickly as possible and to ensure
their orderly , response.
The people in each island-both the government
agencies and public have to be geared to suo moto
respond to any such situation.
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To enhance its preparedness, the Administration has set
up a State Control Room at Port Blair and six Emergency
Operation centres at Mayabunder,
Port Blair, Hut Bay, Car Nicobar, Kamorta and Campbell
Bay which function 24x7 in coordination with control
rooms of various departments and the police.
The UT Disaster management plan has identified 104
refuge areas,
182 relief shelters and 140 relief godowns. Regular mock
drills are organised for capacity building of both the
officials as well as the communities.
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The Administration is also implementing the National
School Safety Programme in 400 schools in the UT.
NDRF has been training the Andaman & Nicobar Police
in disaster response. All preparations are afoot to station
an NDRF company in the islands.
The administration has identified vulnerable locations
across the islands. Various communication methods are
being used to issue alerts.
INCOIS has initiated a project for installing strong motion
seismograph and GPS stations at 35 locations with VSAT link to be for remotely activated tsunami sirens and
VoIP telephony.
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The main objectives of the UT level mock disaster
management exercise planned in November are to
validate the Warning Centre (located at INCOIS,
Hyderabad) dissemination process for issuing Tsunami
Bulletins to national and UT level disaster management
organisations and other participating agencies,
evaluate the process and procedures of agencies
receiving and confirming Tsunami Bulletins,
evaluate the process of dissemination of
bulletins/messages by the disaster management
organizations to other responsible agencies within their
area or to the public,
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hone the organisational decision making process about
public warnings and evacuation, record and assess
community preparedness;
the response time, methodology adopted, the
arrangements made and conduct of evacuation of public
from vulnerable areas,
record and assess the preparedness of search and
rescue teams and communities to tackle incidents such
as collapse of buildings, fire, injuries, casualties etc,
a release from the Directorate of Disaster Management
said.