Bhubaneswar: As the world observes Tsunami Awareness Day today, Odisha stands tall as a pioneer in preparedness for facing any challenges posed by the nature. Odisha’s resilient disaster mitigation infrastructure and mechanism today has become an example for others to emulate. The state, once prone to the deadliest natural disasters, is today successfully fighting them with zero casualty and minimum destruction.
Though it has never experienced a major Tsunami, Odisha has prepared itself as a leader in preparedness thanks to the insightfulness of Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik. The thrust on developing an ecosystem of readiness by improved infrastructure and a robust communication mechanism, Odisha today is fully prepared to face any challenges. It has all the vital buildings such as emergency shelters, public community facilities, transit systems, telecommunications, and power back up plans that are necessary for safely evacuating the masses.
As early as 2020, Odisha became the first state in the Indian Ocean region to get two of its villages recognized as Tsunami Ready by the UNESCO. Under the Tsunami Ready program, Odisha’s Venkatraipur village in Ganjam District and Noliasahi in Jagatsingpur District made history and found place on the world map of disaster management lessons and community readiness. The Tsunami Ready program is implemented by the Odisha State Disaster Management Authority (OSDMA). Also, with this recognition, India became the first country to implement Tsunami Ready in the Indian Ocean Region and Odisha – the first state.
Odisha has become the first state in the Indian Ocean region to implement Tsunami Ready – A community performance-based programme initiated by the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission of UNESCO. The UNESCO recognition to Odisha was an outcome of the efforts of the government to promote tsunami preparedness through active collaboration of public, community leaders, and national and local emergency management agencies.
The Tsunami Ready program aims at improving the coastal community’s preparedness for tsunami emergencies, to minimize the loss of life and property and to ensure a structural and systematic approach in building community preparedness through fulfilling the best-practice indicators set by the Intergovernmental Coordination Group for the Indian Ocean Tsunami Warning and Mitigation System (ICG/IOTWMS) of UNESCO-IOC.
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