Tsunami mock drill in railways, rural Vizag

Visakhapatnam: Tsunami mock drill was conducted at Rajannapalem in the rural Visakhapatnam district and Waltair division between Pundi and Srikakulam railway stations on Wednesday. The drill was held as per the directive of the Ministry of Home Affairs and Indian National Centre for Ocean Information Services.

The exercise was intended to test the preparedness of the disaster management mechanism of railways in case of a mass emergency situation and to review the lapses, if any. All the departments associated with disaster management took part in the exercise. The focus was on measures to be adopted on a war-footing at various levels.

The tsunami alert for the drill was issued from the Emergency Operation Centre at divisional headquarters and an urgent meeting was convened by the divisional railway manager. Messages were sent through phone, e-mail, fax and other methods. The railway stations between Pundi and Srikakulam road were alerted and the trains were controlled.

Rescue and relief teams with the materials were prepared, along with accident relief train and medical emergency train, was ordered to move the affected area. The travelling public were alerted through the public announce system that it was a tsunami mock drill.

The major objectives were testing the efficiency of communication links, disaster management offices and managing the travelling public in trains and to test the standard operating procedures of emergency services to evaluate readiness to handle tsunami-like emergency situations. In rural area, the drill was conducted at Vadapalem village under Achyutapuram mandal. RDO K Padmavati supervised the rescue and relief operations.