VISAKHAPATNAM: Serious efforts are being made to prevent deaths, particularly of youngsters who are drowning in sea off Visakhapatnam.
GVMC already has 38 lifeguards at various beaches of the Port City to rescue people from drowning. AP Tourism Development Corporation (APTDC) is also contemplating development of sea swimming pools at about five places to prevent people from moving far into the sea.
For the same purpose, Space Application Centre, Ahmedabad, of Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) is collaborating in a two-year project titled Samudra with Department of Meteorology and Oceanography, Andhra University, and National Centre for Earth Science Studies (NCESS), Thiruvananthapuram.
AU’s meteorology and oceanography department head Prof. C.V. Naidu told Deccan Chronicle in Visakhapatnam on Tuesday that Samudra envisages development of an Automated Rip Current Alert System. It consists of a camera installed on top of a tower near Rushikonda Beach.
“Data from this camera will be of utmost importance in not only studying and understanding the beach processes and rip currents, but will also be helpful in assisting lifeguards in case of any drowning event,” Prof. Naidu said.
He said the two-year study of the three institutions will help identify dangerous rip currents in the Rushikonda area. This information will be shared with concerned authorities, who will limit access to beachgoers in such zones. This will help enhance safety and reduce the number of drownings.
Prof. Naidu said they are also exploring utilisation of state-of-the-art techniques like Machine Learning / Artificial Intelligence to automatically identify persons on the beach and raise an alarm if anyone enters the dangerous zones.
“With utilisation of technology, it is now possible to detect persons in distress and sound a siren, which will alert lifeguards about the exact location of the person, so that s/he can be immediately saved. This will help the government manage the beach with minimum number of lifeguards,” the professor remarked. The project will be extended to RK Beach, Yarada and Bheemili in future, he stated.
Sources said APTDC is exploring setting up of sea swimming pools at five different locations along Visakhapatnam coast. A Hyderabad-based entrepreneur had already submitted proposals for the project to be taken under public-private partnership (PPP) mode.
