How Odisha's model of disaster preparedness came into being
Home to over 4.6 crore people, Odisha, along the Bay of Bengal, often acts as a magnet for all kinds of natural disasters.
In October 1999, a super cyclone of massive proportions ripped through the entire Odisha coast snuffing away over 10,000 lives while rendering millions homeless. The 1999 cyclone remains etched in our memories as an apocalyptic failure of the administration as the mighty winds wreaked havoc exposing the extreme vulnerability of people to the whims of nature.
In 2013, Cyclone Phailin wreaked havoc in the state affecting over 1.1 million people and causing damages worth ₹4,240 crore.
A little more than two years ago, on May 3, 2019, Odisha was hit by cyclone Fani with a sustained windspeed of 180-190 km per hour that claimed 64 lives and caused damages worth over ₹24,176 crore. Termed “rarest of the rare” summer cyclone, Fani could have wreaked huge casualties across the districts of Puri and Khurda but for the massive pre-disaster planning undertaken by the state government. As the state readies for cyclone Yaas, scheduled to make landfall on May 26 noon, its expertise and resilience in dealing with disasters have come in for praise.
Home to over 4.6 crore people, Odisha, along the Bay of Bengal, often acts as a magnet for all kinds of natural disasters starting from floods, cyclones to droughts. Between 1891 and 2021, over 100 tropical cyclones are known to have lashed Odisha — the highest number among other states on the coast.
Professor Santosh Kumar of the National Institute of Disaster Management, who has studied the post-disaster response of Odisha in the wake of the 1999 super cyclone as well as the 2019 Fani cyclone, said Odisha has come a long way in the last two decades.
"Odisha has been able to protect its people. That's the most important part. In terms of bringing down the number of lives lost and the people getting affected, the state has done well. This has never happened in one day. Odisha took a conscious decision and gradually built upon its capacity, particularly at the community level. It has successfully started community-level warning, built multi-purpose cyclone shelters under National Cyclone Risk Mitigation Project and built an Early Warning Dissemination System with last-mile connectivity. The capacity to deal with natural disasters has increased tremendously at the community level. If there is a model of preventing largescale deaths in disaster, we can call it the Odisha model," said Prof Kumar.
From over 10,000 deaths in the 1999 cyclone, the fatalities have mostly been in double digits in most of the cyclones including the Phailin cyclone in 2013, Hudhud in 2014, Titli in 2018 and Fani in 2019 that swept through Odisha. Experts say timely evacuation due to an early warning system has helped.
In October 1999, the Indian Meteorological Department (IMD) issued cyclone warnings three days before the cyclone struck the Odisha coast. Compared to that, the prediction for most of the cyclones has been at least 5-6 days prior to its landfall giving adequate time to the administration to take necessary steps.
"In 1999, the Odisha government learned about the change of path of the super cyclone pretty late and soon after the state’s communication networks collapsed and the situation could no longer be monitored. But now, cyclone warning by the IMD comes pretty early and is accurate with least deviation and observed path and predicted path almost going on the same line. This has not just inspired confidence among the people on the ground but also the officials. This has also prevented a large number of unnecessary evacuation," said prof Kumar.
In April 2018, Odisha become the first Indian state to have an early warning system in place for natural disasters such as cyclones and tsunami for people living along its 480 km-long coast. The EWDS is a full-proof communication system to address the existing gap in disseminating disaster warning by strengthening the emergency operation centres in the state. At present, as many as 1,205 villages from 22 blocks in the coastal districts of Balasore, Bhadrak, Jagatsinghpur, Puri and Ganjam have been covered under the EWDS. As part of the system, watchtowers have been set up at 122 locations within 1.5 km from the coastline for dissemination of cyclone or tsunami warning through sirens and mass messaging.
“Establishment of EWDS is part of our robust disaster preparedness strategy aiming to save lives on a priority basis," said Kamal Lochan Mishra, executive director of Odisha State Disaster Management Authority.
The specially designed multi-purpose cyclone shelters built on high stilts have also ensured that loss of lives is minimal even during sea surges and persistent water-logging. The 1999 cyclone led to massive sea surges with water ingressing up to 20 km, gobbling villages. In 1999, there were just 23 permanent cyclone shelters in 6 coastal districts that could accommodate about 30,000 people. But learning from its failures, Odisha has built a network of such shelters along the coastline.
"Odisha has a great community outreach system through which people are being reached on time. It now has a network of over 870 cyclone and flood shelters that can house 1000 people each. Over 450 cyclone shelters have maintenance committees where youth have been involved and trained for search and rescue, first aid medical attention, and for providing cyclone warnings," said Deepak Singh, lead disaster risk management specialist at the World Bank.
Apart from the decentralized governance institutional set-up, Odisha also has a disaster-specific institutional mechanism. It has established 16 district-level disaster management planning committees which reach out to 155 block-level disaster management planning committees and 22,000 village-level disaster management committees.
The state has raised 20 units of Odisha Disaster Rapid Action Force (ODRAF) that comprises highly trained personnel with multi-disaster tackling capabilities. Equipped with 66 types of sophisticated equipment required for disaster management, including road clearing equipment, branch cutter, tree pruner, concrete cutter, RCC cutter, boat, inflatable tower light, generator, forklift, hydraulic rescue kit, collapse structure search & rescue (CSSR) kit, medical first responder (MFR) kit, ambulance, manikin, high discharge submersible pump, flexi tent, flexi water tank, mountaineering equipment, commando searchlight, diving equipment set, breathing apparatus with a gas mask and chemical cartridge, the force is well-trained in tackling floods, building collapses, cyclones, biological and nuclear disasters.
The proliferation of TV and mobile phones have made people aware of cyclones much before it makes landfall. In 1999, the chief secretary did not have a mobile phone and no second line of communications were kept ready. There was no Internet connection in the Odisha secretariat in 1999.
Twenty-two years ago, there were not many pucca houses along the coast compared to 2021 when the state government has converted a large number of these houses to pucca ones under state-specific schemes like Biju Pucca Ghar Yojana, Mo Kudia or central schemes like Pradhan Mantri Grameen Awas Yojana. In 1999, the panchayats did not stock basic rations like rice, pulses, jaggery and kerosene while in subsequent disasters all panchayats stock basic rations.
"Like all previous disasters, our goal is not to allow a single person to die. Zero casualty remains our goal," said Pradip Jena, special relief commissioner of Odisha.
However, Odisha has fallen short in its post-disaster response as well as preventing large scale damages to its infrastructure and primary sector like agriculture, fisheries and animal husbandry.
When Cyclone Fani struck Odisha coast, the state suffered losses worth ₹8,138 crore in the power sector due to the snapping of thousands of kilometres of power lines and electrical towers throwing several parts of the cyclone-affected area into darkness for more than two months. More than 5,500 base transceiver stations of various mobile telecom companies were damaged in the cyclone.
The damage to the telecom BTS IN cities of Puri, Bhubaneswar, and Cuttack led to mobile connectivity outage in 80% of areas across the three cities and resulted in disconnecting millions of users, including citizens, government officials and first responders, for weeks. Odisha State Wide Area Network, which was set up to connect the state with 30 district headquarters and 284 block headquarters and 61 horizontal offices through data, video and voice communications also failed.
Fani hit the housing sector the hardest, damaging nearly 3.62 lakh units of houses across the 14 districts. As per an estimate by the state government, the combined economic losses to the state from the last 3 cyclones - Phailin, Titli, and Fani - was around ₹40,474 crore.
"Odisha needs to protect its infrastructure from getting hit in future disasters. Both central and state government infrastructures have been repeatedly lost during cyclones. The agriculture and horticulture sector have to be made resilient to such routine disasters. Odisha would hopefully become a model state in that," said Prof Kumar.
Last 5 cyclones in Odisha
October 2013: Extremely severe cyclonic storm Phailin crossed Odisha coast at Gopalpur, accompanied by a storm surge of 5 feet and heavy rainfall. Death toll- 59
October 2014: Extremely severe cyclonic storm Hudhud made landfall near Vishakhapatnam and then passed through Odisha. Death toll- 0
October 2018: Very severe cyclonic storm Titli made landfall at Srikakulam in Andhra Pradesh but changed course to wreak much damage in interior districts of Odisha. Death toll-77
May 2019: Very severe cyclonic storm Fani made landfall at Puri. Death toll-89
May 2020: Severe cyclonic storm Amphan made landfall at Sundarbans. Death toll-3