GUNTUR/VIJAYAWADA: Officials responsible for disaster management held mock tsunami drills in the coastal areas of Krishna and Guntur districts on Friday.
The mock tsunami bulletin announced an earthquake of 9.2 magnitude on the Richter scale hitting Andaman Nicobar Island.
The disaster management department office located at Kunchanapalli of Krishna district monitored all the mock drills conducted in the nine costal districts including Palakaya Tippa in the Krishna district.
The National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) with revenue, police, fire and SDRF personnel conducted the mock drill at seacoast Ramachandrapuram village of Bapatla Mandal in Guntur district on Friday.
As many as 200 NDRF personnel led by deputy commander Santosh Kumar conducted awareness programme for the villagers. The teams explained simple self-rescue methods during emergency condition till the arrival of rescue team.
They highlighted the use of empty water bottles and empty boxes in a bid to prevent drowning. They spoke about the likely scenario before and after a tsunami strike with photo exhibits on tsunami.
They explained how people be rescued while drowning during emergency conditions and offered first aid with the locally available medicines.
Tenali RDO G. Narsimhulu said that the government wants to be ready to face any emergency conditions and hence the mock tsunami drill was held.
He said after the mock tsunami bulletin was released, personnel from the NDRF, fire, revenue, police, SDRF and other departments responded accordingly.
They alerted locals from the seacoast villages and shifted them to safer places. He said that nearly 700 villagers were evacuated from Ramachandrapuram and adjacent seacoast villages treating the tsunami bulletin as emergency and taught the methods of rescue to the villagers.
Bapatla tahsildar T. Vallaiah, with police, fire and other department officials, participated in the mock drill and addressed the public about emergency rescue methods during Tsunami emergency conditions.
