By Ratnajyoti Dutta
DEHRADUN: Union Earth Science Minister Kiren Rijiju urged citizens to prepare against natural disasters to better face challenges posed by catastrophes like cloudbursts, earthquakes, and glacier flood outbursts.
Rijiju called upon all stakeholders including the scientific community and civil societies to be prepared in advance to mitigate huge losses associated with natural disasters.
“Ahead of the curve preparation against any natural disasters will have to begin at an individual level involving communities at grass root levels to able to handle any situation robustly,” Rijiju said at the Valedictory function of the World Congress on Disaster Management (WCDM) at the Silver Jubilee Hall of Graphic Era University in Dehradun on December 1.
Every citizen should know how to face a disaster as the occurrence of disasters has been increasing, the minister said, hinting at the climate change issues including global warming.
Forecasting any natural disaster is turning out to be more unpredictable, Rijiju said and added that the scientific community has been engaged in raising precision levels in disaster forecasting methods including earthquakes and glacial lake outburst floods.
‘Dehradun Declaration’
The minister hoped the Dehradun Declaration adopted after the deliberations at the four-day international conference would help in setting the global agenda for disaster management.
“From Devbhoomi, the DRR (Disaster Risk Reduction) movement will go everywhere,” said Durgesh Pant, Director General of UCOST while releasing the ‘Dehradun Declaration’, a 20-point action document arrived at WCDM.
The full form of UCOST stands for Uttarakhand Science and Technology Council.
Pant, the main man behind the organizing team, was the chairman of the Scientific and Technical Committee of the WCDM.
“Each one of us should evolve to be disaster resilient,” said Uttarakhand Governor Lt. Gen. Gurmit Singh in his address as the Chief Guest of the valedictory function.
Singh said all should treat ‘The Earth’ as ‘The Mother’ and behave like her children to protect the environment and ecological balance.
Naresh Bansal, a Rajya Sabha Member from Uttarakhand, said the recent Silkyara tunnel incident would be a glaring example for engineering students to learn how to deal with such a challenging situation.
On the first day of the global conference on December 28, the 41 workers at the Silkyara tunnel in Uttarkashi hill range were rescued safely after being trapped for nerve taking 17 days inside the tunnel.
“Now onwards our job will be to decipher the idea gathered from the conference and ensure how can we absorb the gathered ideas into our system,” said Ranjit Kumar Sinha, Uttarakhand government’s secretary for disaster management and rehabilitation.
