Cyclone Phaline in Orissa

Recently cyclone phalin took place in Orissa. Orissa has given very smooth and successful response to cyclone phalin.

In 1999 as super cyclone came in Orissa where, more than 10,000 people were claim to dead. Orissa was badly devastated. This huge devastation shocked the nation for long time and within for month when the elections held congress government was battered at the polls. The cyclone phalin was of little less intensity but only 21 lives are claimed to dead. This data of 2013 shows very different from 1999. One of the difficult tasks was to evacuate the people but over 9 lakh people were evacuated. This shows that the government has prepared strategically for long time. This was made possible with the help of politicians and closed supervision by administrative officers which clearly shows years of careful planning. 

Indian Metrological Department was very accurate in prediction. The important thing to note is that, United State’s Navy Typhoon warning center and the British Met Office predicted a super cyclone with a speed of more than 300kmph. In contrast, IMD predicted the cyclone phaline and it came with the same intensity, as it was predicted, and almost on the same identical path.

National Disaster Management Authority was also seemed very active. The cyclone hit Orissa minutes after 9 PM and in the very morning they removed fallen trees and reopened the highways. Till Monday all the people who were evacuated, returned to their home. 

This seems a strong co-ordination between State government, Central government and Metrological Department, NDMA and other disaster management services and worked as a perfect team. Effective planning and co-ordination with definitely help us to tackle with these disaster. 

 

I am really thankful to chief minister Naveen Patnaik, director general of IMD L Rathore, National Disaster Management Authority vice president M. Shashidhar Reddy and collector of Ganjam district of Orissa, Krishna Kumar who continuously worked for 96 hrs .

I hope Uttrakhand and representatives of other disaster prone areas will unquestionably take lesson from this.