Bringing resilience in cyclone management

SP Vasudeva
Retired Indian Forest Service officer

CYCLONES cause catastrophes in coastal areas due to the high wind speed, heavy rainfall, storm surge and floods that accompany them. India has a coastline of 7,516 km, of which 5,700 km is exposed to severe cyclones. It is a well-established fact that with climate change and variability becoming more pronounced, hazardous events, including cyclones, are set to grow. This necessitates measures to manage them. India has made great strides in moving from reactive response to being proactive in implementing disaster-preparedness and risk reduction initiatives facing many disasters. 

The issue was taken seriously after the 1999 super cyclone that struck Odisha when more than 9,000 people had died and 4,00,000 livestock perished. It affected 15 million people and more than two million households in the state. The loss estimated was around Rs 25,000 crore. Odisha decided to set up an exclusive state disaster management authority to deal with disasters. It started investing in strengthening cyclone mitigation infrastructure and mobilising communities for disaster management. 

The three-tiered structure of setting up of disaster management authorities at national, state and district levels came up with the promulgation of the Disaster Management Act, 2005. 

After the Odisha super cyclone of 1999, the Government of India initiated the National Cyclone Risk Mitigation Project (NCRMP). 

The NCRMP-I was initiated in Odisha and Andhra Pradesh in 2011 with a cost of Rs 1,499 crore. The erection of disaster management infrastructure for mitigation and risk reduction in coastal areas, such as multi-purpose cyclone shelters for housing the vulnerable houseless, poor and needy during the cyclone, laying of network of roads and, where required, bridges for people to easily flee before landfall of cyclone and subsequently to use these for rescue and relief operations and construction of saline embankments to protect coastal agricultural and horticultural lands from storm surge and flooding were parts of this project. Early warning dissemination system was included. Its cost has been revised. 

These measures helped reduce cyclonic risks. The results were visible when cyclone Phaillin struck Odisha and AP in 2013. Only two people died in Odisha and 10 in AP. Similarly, during cyclone Hudhud in 2014 that struck these two states, loss suffered in terms of human and animals lives was minimal. However, the total loss of Rs 26,000 crore was reported due to Phallin and Rs 21,000 crore due to Hudhud. These cyclones caused colossal damage to the electrical infrastructure that fell flat on ground. Agricultural and horticultural lands were inundated and roofs of houses blown away, properties of railways, airports, steel plants, ports were damaged. In the past, cyclones had mostly struck in rural areas. Hence, Vishakhapatnam was taken by surprise as a lot of destruction was caused in the city in the absence of measures.

So, the Government of India decided to further initiate mitigation and risk reduction measures to tackle such losses. Components of taking electrical infrastructure underground, helping people to have cemented roofs resistant to wind speed of up to 300 km per hour, making such measures compulsory for buildings, raising of coastal shelter belts of tree species to protect coastal agriculture and horticulture from strong winds, conserving mangroves and planting of these for protection from coastal erosion were made part of the NCRMP-I. Rs 835 crore was additionally allocated.

In addition, the NCRMP-II with all the components of phase I with an outlay of Rs 2,400 crore was initiated in 2015 and is under implementation in Gujarat, Goa, Karnataka, Kerala, Maharashtra and West Bengal. Tamil Nadu and Puducherry are covered through the World Bank-aided Emergency Tsunami Reconstruction Project. It has brought resilience from disaster risks. Multi-purpose cyclone shelters have been housing vulnerable people, the bases of these shelters are used to keep livestock during cyclones, leading to reduced human and livestock mortality. During normal times, these are put to other uses, such as schools, panchayat ghars, mahila mandal ghars etc. 

The network of roads so erected not only assists during cyclones, but has also made life easy in communicating, including transporting their agricultural produce. Saline embankments are performing the function for which these were built in protecting villages, agricultural and horticultural lands. 

The early warning system is about to be energised. It would help communicate minute-to-minute warning about impending cyclones and action required to be taken by people.

These could be used  during normal times for providing other information  on mobiles and e-mail about safety, pricing of agricultural, horticultural, dairy and other produce etc. The capacity-building has been done scientifically through gap analysis and has empowered the communities to face cyclones effectively. The houses with concrete roofs being built in rural areas has helped reduce risks from damage. The shifting of electrical infrastructure underground will not only help in its protection, but electrical supply can also be restored immediately after the passing of the cyclone. The erection of shelter belts by selecting local tree species has to be initiated and so also conservation and perpetuation of mangroves. 

However, in spite of these measures, the losses sustained due to subsequent cyclones have not been encouraging. Due to Cyclone Gaga that struck Tamil Nadu this month, te death toll  has touched 45 and that of cattle 735. About 1.20 lakh houses have been damaged and 88,000 hectares of agricultural land affected. More cyclones are due in future because of  climate change. It necessitates the need to fast-track the implementation of the measures initiated. 

However, Rs 6,000 crore is too meagre. Additional measures need to be put in place. The strategy is in place and so also the action plan. But the governments must monitor these aspects to see that resilience from the cyclones is implemented throughout the coastline. The initiative on awareness generation, community and voluntary participation, capacity building, disaster risk management and disaster risk reduction by the Government of Odisha is worth replicating by other states. We have to move towards a nil death rate and minimal loss.