Caracas. India has once again proved its mettle across the world in the field of disaster management amid the humanitarian crisis arising after the recent devastating twin earthquakes of 7.2 and 7.5 magnitude in Venezuela. The Venezuelan government has specially invited India’s ‘Cyclone Man’ and former Odisha bureaucrat ‘VK Pandian’ to learn the virtues of ‘disaster management and rehabilitation’ after the earthquake that caused massive devastation and over 3,800 deaths. VK Pandian, who reached Caracas on the invitation of Venezuela’s interim President Delsey Rodriguez, is sharing the outline of India’s ‘Zero Casualty Odisha Model’. So that the loss of human lives during such disasters in future can be reduced to zero.
What is ‘Zero Casualty Odisha Model’?
More than 10,000 citizens lost their lives in the super cyclone that struck Odisha in 1999. Odisha took this horrific tragedy as a lesson and completely changed its disaster management system. From this change, ‘Zero Casualty Model’ was born. Its main pillars are as follows-
Early Warning System: Under this, with the help of state-of-the-art technology, the exact time and affected area is identified several days before the disaster occurs.
Mass Evacuation: As soon as the danger is sensed, lakhs of people from the affected areas are shifted to safe places on a war footing. During cyclones ‘Phailin’ and ‘Fani’, Odisha had evacuated a record number of more than 10 lakh people.
Cyclone Shelters: Hundreds of multipurpose cyclone shelters have been set up in coastal and sensitive areas of the state, where food, water and medical facilities are provided.
Community Partnership: The biggest strength of this model is the local communities, panchayats and women self-help groups (Mission Shakti), who are trained in advance to deal with disasters.
Quick Action Force: Odisha has constituted its own special ‘Odisha Disaster Rapid Action Force’, which specializes in debris removal and rescue operations immediately after any disaster.
The result of this perfect strategy was that even the United Nations has considered this model of Odisha as an example at the global level.
The role of ‘Cyclone Man’ and ‘Operation Amistad’ in Venezuela
At present Venezuela is going through the worst phase in its history, where the infrastructure has been completely destroyed due to the earthquake. After taking stock of the ground situation there, VK Pandian held meetings with President Delsey Rodriguez and senior officials. He also gave strategic suggestions to Venezuela for long-term disaster mitigation and reconstruction of earthquake-resistant infrastructure. Meanwhile, extending the hand of friendship, the Indian Government has also started ‘Operation Amistad’ there. Let us tell you that under this operation, a special field hospital unit of the Indian Army is treating the injured round the clock in Venezuela, which Pandian himself has appreciated.
Experts say that this formula of Odisha will prove to be a new ‘blueprint’ for other countries of the world for recovery and rehabilitation after unexpected natural disasters like cyclones as well as earthquakes.
