Goa being a coastal State, it is often at the mercy of the whims of nature. The tiny State has experienced natural disaster such as floods but not of massive proportions, which can render people homeless and snuff away their lives.
In May 2021, Goa was hit by a severe cyclone Tauktae, causing damages to houses, uprooting trees and electricity poles. Two persons were killed in the cyclone related incident.
In January this year, the disaster response was exposed during the major fire that broke out in the Berger Paints factory at the Pilerne Industrial Estate, when people residing near the factory had to be evacuated as thick fumes caused breathing problems to the residents.
Similar was the case whenever ammonia leakages have been reported in the State.
Team O Heraldo visited some of the control room of Disaster Management set up at the respective Taluka headquarters and found how is
lacking in responding to any sort of emergencies.
The government has deployed staff from other departments to manage the control rooms during night. These control rooms are ill-equipped and devoid of key requirements to effectively respond to and manage emergencies during monsoon. There is no adequate manpower deployed to attend to any emergency during the night.
The staff posted at the control room of Collectorate office, Panjim said that during night he only receives the phone calls and register complaints and refer them to the officials to act next morning except in extreme cases when he intimates
the Taluka Mamlatdar, who resides
in Margao.
The control room in Pernem and Sattari Taluka have been provided cell phones, but they are not attended to, particularly at night.
The top government officials have been trained in disaster management and handling emergencies, while the staff is not well-versed in disaster management protocols.
The staffers are clueless whether disaster medical team is in place to render medical assistance to anyone injured in a disaster. They are also unaware of the emergency response plans and protocols.
Though disaster management teams have to be available at the control room to rush at any disaster site immediately, recently the team was the last one to respond to the incident of wall collapse of the building of Urban Health Centre at Margao.
Narrating his bitter experience, former Goa Medical College (GMC), Head of Department (Forensic Medicine) Dr Silvano Sapeco said that, “I contacted North Goa control room for disaster management on two occasions during the day. But no action was taken. The staff in control room, who received my phone call, had the audacity to cut it off.”
“My subsequent call, full ring went off, but it was intentionally not attended to by the receiver. Further, I made five calls only to encounter that the receiver purposefully kept the telephone off the hook to annoy the complainant,” Dr Sapeco said.
Referring to the Margao Urban Health Centre wall which collapsed last week last week, Rodney D’Souza from Navelim said, “The disaster management team was the last one to respond to the incident. The emergency team needs to be anchored at the control room so that they rush to the site without wasting precious time,” he said.
Director of Fire and Emergency Services Nitin V Raiker says, “We are the first to respond to any natural disaster or emergency in the State. We have trained as many as 348 Aapda Mitra and Aapda Sakhi in life-saving skills of disaster response and handle distress situations like search and rescue, medical first aid, basic fire safety, etc and their services can be utilised in times of disaster. These trained personnel are at the disposal of Revenue Department.”
Raiker informed that municipal councils of Margao, Ponda, Cuncolim, Canacona and Curchorem-Cacora have deployed their labourers in the offices of the Fire and Emergency Services so as to work together in case of emergency during monsoon.
However, an official in the Revenue department claimed that officials from various departments have been trained by the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) in disaster management.
“We have been trained in Incident Response System by NDMA team and a Standard Operating Procedures (SOP) has also been prepared giving details, whom to contact during emergency. Deputy Collector (Disaster) is the point of contact,” a Revenue Department official said.
