Along with other districts of Assam, the Kokrajhar District Disaster Management Authority also conducted a major mock exercise on earthquake disaster on Thursday.
It was conducted in collaboration with Assam State Disaster Management Authority (ASDMA) and National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) at some identified locations of like Bazaar India, City Life, Hotel Gaurang Valley and Kendriya Vidyalaya, which were considered to be the vulnerable places in case of any kind of disasters in the district.
During the exercise, the siren was blown all throughout Kokrajhar town at 10 AM and with this the assumption was done that an earthquake of greater magnitude had hit Kokrajhar and accordingly, the District Emergency Operation Centre (DEOC) was activated under the command of the Responsible Officer (RO) Partha Pratim Mazumdar, who was also the Deputy Commissioner of the district.
The exercise was conducted as per the plan of the Incident Response System (IRS) and all the three sections of the Incident Response Teams like Operation, Planning and Logistic were activited immediately.
The whole exercise of evacuation, search, and rescue of persons trapped inside the buildings and providing first aid treatment before being shifted by Ambulances to RNB Civil Hospital, Kokrajhar saw an active participation from all the line departments as well as Assam Police, Fire and Emergency Services, APRO, SDRF, Indian Army SSB, CRPF, students and volunteers from NGOs.
The entire exercise was witnessed by the observers drawn from the civil administration, Army, SSB, CRPF officials.
After the drill, debriefing session through video conference was held simultaneously with all the district key officials to evaluate the programme and find out the areas of improvement besides various sudden measures to be taken to minimize possible casualties during the disaster time.
The mock exercise was conducted with the aims and objectives of reviewing the disaster management plan of the district and roles and responsibilities of various stakeholders as per the plan of Incident Response System.
Later, the Deputy Commissioner Partha Pratim Mazumdar expressed his gratitude to all the line departments, Army, CRPF, SSB and NGOs for their cooperation and support.