"Hundreds feared
killed as winds with a velocity of over 260 km per hour batter 10 coastal
districts of Orissa for over eight hours. A panicked state government, ill
prepared, calls in for help. The scale of devastation not known even a day
after the disaster as communication to thousands of villages cut off. The blame
for not preparing for the calamity falls equally on the Weather
Department"."
That was the news that hit
the front page of this newspaper on October 30, 1999, the day after the super
cyclone hit Orissa.
Cut 14 years ahead and the
story of Phailin is totally different: 9,800 died then, 18 deaths have been
reported so far this time; a few thousand evacuated then, more than 9 lakh
taken to rescue shelters in 2013; communications completely destroyed then,
Orissa is already talking about restoration now.
While the severity of
Cyclone Phailin was by most indications lesser than the 1999 storm, one of the
potentially worst natural disasters to hit India in years was averted due to a
combination of efforts — including by the Meteorological Department, the state
government and Centre. And it could become a role model for future disaster
mitigation in the country.
THE
STATE GOVERNMENT
A forewarned state
government did not shy away this time from seeking all possible help from the
Centre and carried out a mass evacuation programme. Chief Minister Naveen
Patnaik personally called up Prime Minister Manmohan Singh as well as the
Defence Minister to press the importance of the matter.
In 1999, when the super
cyclone struck, then chief minister Giridhar Gamang was consulting his
astrologers, who reportedly assured him that Cyclone O5B would split into two
and fly over Orissa. Officials could not convince people in Jagatsinghpur that
tidal surges could kill them. When the cyclone struck finally, there was no
electricity even in the state secretariat as no one had thought of arranging a
generator.
It was only after the scale
of the devastation became clear that the Gamang government requested the Centre
to send in armed forces and to seek "immediate release" of Rs 500
crore for rescue and relief.
This time, more than 72
hours before Phailin reached the coast, the state had initiated preparations
for its arrival — evacuating people from coastal districts, mobilising
officials and setting up temporary relief camps. Evacuation of 9,12,848 people
was achieved in time, despite only 48 hours of notice being available for the
precise location of the storm's landfall.
The state government pushed
all available legislators to oversee work in their constituencies and
government officials were told to work extra shifts despite it being festive
season. With the ground well covered, the state is confident that within 24
hours, power will be restored in the affected parts and by 48 hours all roads
will be cleared.
As things stand, 15
districts have been hit, including 14,514 villages. No major physical casualty
has taken place and the damage has basically been to communications.
By mid-morning Sunday, the
state government had conveyed that it would not be requiring the services of thousands
of personnel who had been put on standby and hundreds who had been rushed in.
THE
WEATHER DEPARTMENT
Defending its turf in the
face of foreign 'experts' who predicted, varyingly, total annihilation to
gentle winds, a well-equipped and confident India Meteorological Department
(IMD) managed to not only get the scale of the natural event correct but was
also as accurate as possible in the location of where the storm would hit the
coast.
In 1999, the IMD had four
long days to track and warn about the cyclone approaching Orissa. Lacking
modern technology, there were only two days of warning that a simple cyclone
originating from the Malay peninsula had picked up speed in the Bay of Bengal
to emerge as a super cyclone.
This time, it stuck to its
stand that it wasn't a super cyclone, contrary to proclamations by global
experts. Director General, Meteorology, L S Rathore, in fact, rubbished the
panic over Phailin, asking reporters to trust the IMD's expertise. Rathore's
confidence was not ill-founded. Unlike 1999, the IMD of 2013 has an arsenal of
sophisticated equipment, acquired over the 11th Plan period, plus the
information gleaned through India's remote sensing satellites.
Rathore Sunday said that
the accuracy in predicting the strength and nature of Phailin came from several
measures taken over the past few years. "We have been improving our
observation system. The development of human resources has also helped,"
he said, adding that the creation of a separate Ministry of Earth Sciences was
crucial as this led to better interaction and transfer of operational systems.
As part of Phase I of the
comprehensive modernisation of the Earth System Sciences Organisation between
2007-12, the weather office acquired state-of-the-art automatic weather
stations, automatic rain gauges, doppler weather radars, as well as monitoring,
analysis, visualisation and product dissemination systems, besides
global/regional/meso-scale forecast models with real-time data assimilation
through high-performance computing systems.
Specifically to keep an eye
on weather conditions in real time, 24X7 monitoring systems are in place backed
by 675 air weather stations, while 1,024 automatic rain gauges and 17 S and
C-Band doppler weather radars have been commissioned at Chennai, Sriharikota,
Machilipatnam, Visakhapatnam, Kolkata, Mumbai, Bhuj, Hyderabad, Nagpur,
Patiala, Delhi Palam and Delhi Lodhi Road, Lucknow, Patna, Mohanbari (Assam),
Agartala and Jaipur.
THE
CENTRE
Learning its lessons from
the Uttarakhand tragedy, it lost no time in mass mobilisation of the three
armed forces. It deployed nearly 2,500 National Disaster Relief Force (NDRF)
personnel. Out of this, 29 teams were deployed in Orissa, 19 in Andhra Pradesh
and 7 in West Bengal. To accommodate those affected, 250 cyclone shelters were
set up.
A day after the cyclone
made landfall, the Centre acknowledged that casualties had been minimised due
to advance and timely warnings from the IMD, early evacuation and the
preparedness of disaster management authorities. The monitoring and
coordination system activated after the recent Uttarakhand flash floods was put
to test during Phailin and so far had made good progress in containing the
cyclone and its aftermath, officials said.
The NDMA (National Disaster
Management Authority) reported receiving nearly 400 calls at the NDRF Control
Room in Delhi, seeking cyclone-related information. NDMA officials said around
100 persons were still stranded in Andhra Pradesh and Orissa, and NDRF
personnel were on their way to rescue them.
As per preliminary reports,
the NDRF, using sophisticated tree-cutting equipment, has cleared the 15-km
Konark-Puri road.
A DIG from the NDRF is
stationed at Bhubaneswar to coordinate rescue and relief work in both the
states. Over the past three days, the NDMA, which works under the Ministry of
Home Affairs, tied up with Andhra Pradesh and Orissa to set up a 24-hour
control room. Also on the standby is a 30-member quick response medical team,
including personnel from Central government hospitals and the CGHS (Central
Government Health Scheme).
The Ministry of Health and
Family Welfare has set up 10 teams of public health professionals to counter
the chance of epidemics, as well as a team of psychological experts.
Defence Ministry personnel
were also pressed into service, but eventually did not have to be used as most
of the people were evacuated in time. The Army, Air Force and Navy columns are
now helping the state government restore transportation and communication
facilities. More than 55 Army colums will continue to remain on high alert due
to floods expected in parts of Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand and Bihar in the next 48
hours.
Large assets of the three
Services and Coast Guard will also remain on standby. The Air Force has
allocated 30 helicopters and 13 transport aircraft, including the two recently
acquired Hercules. The Navy has kept its large warships ready at Visakhapatnam,
with rations for 10,000 persons, potable water and medical teams. The Coast
Guard has 15 of its ships on alert at Kakinada, Paradip and Visakhapatnam —
their helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft have already commenced patrolling the
coast. On Sunday evening, they rescued 19 Chinese and one Indonesian crewmen of
the sunken Panamanian ship MV Bingo.
