With a view for testing the capability for responding to disasters and also for enabling the convergence of different stakeholder departments and functionaries for proper coordination in times of disaster, a mock exercise simulating earthquake with a magnitude of 8.7 on Ritcherscale was conducted at Dimapur on 15th February 2022.
During the mock exercise, an earthquake-like situation was created at Dimapur Government College, presuming that the building partially collapsed with persons trapped on the top floor and the college auditorium on fire due to the earthquake. The strike team headed by Unit Commander NDRF and involving Fire and Emergency services conducted search and rescue operations where seriously injured and others in different medical conditions were shifted to the hospitals by the medical team.
In this rescue mission, the search and rescue team retrieved three dead bodies, four with crucial injuries and eight with minor injuries from different levels of the building.
At Pantaloon Shopping Mall, Strike Team Headed by Unit commander SDRF and involving Medical Team and SDRF team conducted the Mock exercise.
The evacuation plan was executed and the Search and rescue team rushed to the spot at around 11:30 AM and retrieved one dead, two seriously injured, and five with minor injuries from different levels of the building.
DC Dimapur, Rajesh Soundararajan IAS expressed satisfaction over the successful conduct of the Mock exercise and lauded all the stakeholders for their active participation.
Reminding that Nagaland also falls under the earthquake-prone zone, Rajesh said that the exercise was conducted for observing the preparedness level and coordination of concerned stakeholders as Community First Respondents in real-time scenarios. He encouraged them to remain physically and mentally prepared all the time and to work for improvement through the activities learned during the mock exercise.
In rooms of improvement, the observers underscored the need for guides, to lead the NDRF team (who might be new to the area) to the incident sites to save time and lives. The need and importance of a human life detector to trace the trapped persons were also pointed out.
To keep the members in the District Emergency operation center (DEOC) updated on the status in the incident sites and staging areas during the disaster, an Information Board would be useful, noted another observer.
All in all, the observers were satisfied with the performance of all the stakeholders involved during the mock exercise.
The program was organized by DDMA Dimapur in collaboration with NSDMA, NDRF, and SDRF.
(DPRO; Sebu and Limatoshi, IA Dimapur)
