Mock drills conducted to check disaster preparedness at Biswanath Chariali

A CORRESPONDENT

BISWANATH CHARIALI: To check the preparedness of the administration in the event of any disaster, Biswanath district administration on Friday organized a mock drill in Biswanath Chariali town. The mock drill was in accordance with the Incident Response System (IRS), the disaster management system now widely adopted in India.

The mock drill was led by Biswanath district's Addition Deputy Commissioner Surya Kamal Borah, with support from resource person Kaustav Talukdar, District Project Officer of Kamrup Metro district.

Two mock disasters, one of earthquake-led school building collapse and another of a fire incident in a multi-storied building, were staged. As soon as the information of the two mock disasters were received at the control room, which was set up at Deputy Commissioner's office, all officers who are supposed to be part of the disaster management system, swung into action. In addition, the police, NDRF, APRO, fire, 108 ambulance, health, and transport too chipped in on the ground. All coordination between departments was purely through APRO's wireless system. Mobile communication was strictly avoided to simulate a real-time picture.

Deputy Commissioner Borah expressed satisfaction by observing the level of preparedness of the district administration. "This is the first time we are organizing such a mock-drill in Biswanath. This gave us an opportunity to find out how prepared the whole administration is in dealing with disasters. We are highly satisfied with the whole operation," said Borah. Talukdar, who supervised the whole operation on the ground, too expressed happiness with the level of preparedness of the district administration.

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