After Nepal tragedy, Arvind Kejriwal reviews Delhi's preparedness for earthquakes

New Delhi: In the wake of recent earthquakes that hit India and bordering Nepal, Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Monday reviewed the preparedness of national capital in dealing with such natural calamities.

In the meeting, which was held to discuss Delhi's preparedness, Kejriwal along with state Home Minister Satyendra Jain, Chief Secretary KK Sharma, Divisional Commissioner Ashwani Kumar, Delhi Dialogue Commission vice-chairman Ashish Khetan and other senior officials reviewed the equipments, teams and the helplines.

The state's disaster plan includes:

•  10 well equipped Disaster Management Centres are functional in Delhi.
•  One more Disaster Management Centre at Rajokari is under construction.
•  Emergency helpline number 1077 and emergency centres are functional (24x7) in the Headquarters of Divisional Commissioner’s office and 11 districts, which are in touch with the control rooms of MCDs/Delhi Police.
• 19,000 Civil Defence Volunteers are available to extend help in the event of any eventuality.
• State Disaster Management Plan has been prepared. The chief minister has sought a report on the scope of improvement in this plan and how effective it would be in preventing disasters.
• District Disaster Management Plans have also been prepared by three districts (New Delhi, South East & North East). Other districts are also in the process of finalizing the plan.
• 11 Quick Response Teams (QRTs) are functional in the 11 districts. Further QRTs will be created in due course.
• Secured Tetra communication network is functional to deal with situations of emergency in cases when normal communications fail.
• Areas vulnerable in cases of natural disasters in some districts have been identified.
• National School Safety Programme in 400 schools of East/North East Delhi are being implemented. (These include awareness and safety audits of school buildings.)

Other important measures being taken by different agencies are:

I. Identification of disaster management lanes by the Delhi Disaster Management Authority (DDMA) in consultation with traffic police and road owning agencies requires immediate attention.

II. The road owning agency then will be responsible to provide suitable road marking and signage.

Flyovers:

1. Visual inspection of flyovers across the national capital have been conducted after Saturday’s earth quake.

2. Regular routine inspections are required.

3. Detailed inspection of old flyovers to ascertain any distress to sub and super structures.

4. Inspection of bearings and expansion joints since these components have a prescribed life of 10-15 years and need to be replaced after that.

Retrofitting of buildings

1. Retrofitting of vulnerable buildings required : which were designed and constructed with old design codes which did not contain provisions for seismic resistance .

2. Priority to assigned to most critical buildings i.e. Hospitals, Control rooms, Schools, office buildings.

Other priority areas identified for disaster management:

I. To facilitate / provide equipment for removal of debris.

II. Assessment of the damage government buildings and other referred buildings if any

III. Routing/ Re-routing of traffic in coordination with the Traffic

IV. Enlisting of equipment i.e. JCB, Cranes, Tippers, cutters etc.

(With inputs from Delhi govt press release)