When Hells Fall

Recalling the Gujarat earthquake in January 2001, when he was overseeing the rescue operations as the army commander of the area, Vij says that they faced problems due to lack of proper equipment. "We managed to rescue people who were not buried too deep. But we had to wait for the Swiss and Dutch teams to come in our aid and rescue people with their deep retrieval equipment," he says. It is the Gujarat experience that made Vij push for importing rescue equipment worth over Rs 350 crore.

The NDRF personnel will also be capable of deployment at the international level and be able to help out other countries in the subcontinent. In addition to the national level force, the NDRF is also encouraging each state to develop a similar force by training at least one battalion. It could come out and support the efforts of the NDRF in case of a disaster. Moreover, in addition to the locations identified for positioning eight battalions, the NDMA has also decided to set-up regional response centres, where heavy equipment could be pre-positioned. These would ensure prompt response in areas prone to floods, cyclones, avalanches and landslides.

Regional response centres for anti-terror operations and countering RNBC threats will be at Hyderabad, Bangalore and Mumbai. For flood and earthquake, these will be at Itanagar, Dibrugarh, Siliguri, Bongaigaon, Durgapur, Balasore, Vishakhapatnam, Nagpur, Mokama, Muzaffarpur, Saharsa and Allahabad. High altitude disaster rescue teams will be stationed at the vulnerable spots of Kullu, Sarahan and Rekong Peo in Himachal Pradesh, Gaucher, Matli and Pithoragarh in Uttaranchal, and Gangtok in Sikkim.

General Vij is confident that the force that he is putting together will deliver when it matters most. Not all disasters can be predicted or prevented. But a dedicated and trained response force can certainly save more lives.