Ravi Sharma
It’s quite shocking and unfortunate that the Himalayan region (Nepal) has been rocked last month by massive earthquake with 7.9 intensity on Richter Scale that brought death, destruction and devastation of unprecedented magnitude in its wake. It’s a human tragedy that moves almost all. The impact of the tremor has also been felt in parts of India as well resulting into death and devastation in some states. The loss of life especially is unfortunate and distressing and heart goes to all families suffered in this tragedy.
The visuals picked up by various electronic channels and beamed on TV sets tell the story of nature’s wrath and the human agonies and miseries of the unimaginable and unprecedented scale. These TV visuals and other emotive stories brought out by media sends the shivers down the spine of those of who have watched the visuals. The horrifying visuals of buildings once standing as pride of Nepal has been flattened and turned into mounds of debris taking human beings along are really heartrending. The death toll crossed 8,000. The number of people injured and wounded is also in thousands. The PM Modi has acted like a statesman and promptly rushed the relief and rescue materials including NDRF teams and allied agencies with paraphernalia to Nepal in order to ensure that quick and swift succour and support could reach the victims and sufferers. This excellent human gesture has been appreciated by one and all.
This is a fact that science has not so far come of age where it could predict earthquake and warn people in advance for taking pre-emptive steps and moving to safer places outside buildings in the event of an earthquake shaking their areas. As a result, most of the people get caught unaware and trapped beneath the debris of the clasped houses and buildings. Since the timing to move to safer places is quite scanty and minuscule, people are unable to rescue themselves and save their lives. Such tragedies result into total chaos as even the best of the preparedness to cope with natural calamites of such a scale collapse. As the people of Nepal are known for their courage and bravery and fighting spirit, hopefully they will come out of this natural tragedy and rebuilt their mother land.
This also calls for imparting do’s and don’ts through vigorous awareness campaign on a persistent basis when such a tragedy befall anywhere in the country or any part of the world because it is only through proper training and remaining vigilant and alert and taking swift and immediate post quake measures that could minimise the damage to human life especially.
The undeniable fact is that the earthquake will strike and move and shake human life’s besides the buildings and structures etc and in the process many precious lives will be lost as so far there has been no scientific or even otherwise method, these quakes could be predicted providing sufficient-time for people to move to safer places in the event of their areas being hit by an earthquake. Only the human loss could be minimised through pre-emptive as well as post earthquake immediate, swift and cautions response.
This all calls for according greater emphasis on Disaster Management issue. The people living in multistorey building are more vulnerable to earthquakes and it is here that building construction codes needs to be implemented strictly. All aspects relating to seismic building codes, un-checked human settlement in high quake-prone zones and public awareness on vulnerability are the vital issues meriting highest priority. In order to develop early warning systems, vigorous research work is needed to be needed by our scientists and intelligentsia. The quake -resistant technology has to be developed besides making compulsory drills in schools and offices. Even the large-scale specialised training for disaster relief also needs to be accorded priority so that the human loss could be minimised.