For the first time, the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission (IOC) of UNESCO has recognised two villages of Odisha as “Tsunami-Ready Communities”.
With this recognition, India is the first country to implement “Tsunami-Ready” programme in the Indian Ocean Region; and Odisha is the first State.
The villages are Venkatraipur in Ganjam district and Noliasahi in Jagatsinghpur, where the Odisha State Disaster Management Authority (OSDMA) has now implemented the Tsunami-Ready programme.
The National Board, after the verification of implementation of the indicators at these villages as per guidelines, decided to recognise them nationally and recommended to the UNESCO-IOC for the recognition.
To confer the UNESCO-IOC’s Certificate of Recognition and Certificate of Appreciation to Venkatraipur and Noliasahi communities, a virtual event was organised on Friday. State Disaster Management ACS Pradeep Jena long with Venkatraipur and Noliasahi communities’ officials attended the event.
It has been observed that when people at tsunami risk receive accurate warnings in a timely manner, they can take lifesaving actions, reduce losses and speed up response.
Tsunami-Ready is a community performance-based programme initiated by the IOC of UNESCO to promote tsunami preparedness through active collaboration of public, community leaders and national and local emergency management agencies.
