ADGP urges youth to join Civil Defence

Scoop News October 18, 2011

Anantnag/Srinagar, October 18 (Scoop News) - Civil Defence Organisation in collaboration with District Administration Anantnag, organised a one day workshop on Disaster Preparedness at Anantnag. The workshop was inaugurated by Addl DG Police Civil Defence, Home Guards and Auxiliary Police J&K Dr Ram Lubhayya and Deputy Commissioner, Anantnag Kifayat Hussain Rizvi in which more than 300 volunteers of Civil Defence and some government functionaries participated.

Speaking on the occasion Addl DG, Civil Defence said that J&K State has been divided into 13 Multi Hazardous Civil Defence Districts and therefore, it is important to take steps to train the youth to prepare them to handle disasters. He said that two Companies of Auxiliary Police have been trained as State Disaster Response Force. He urged more and more people to join the family of Civil Defence volunteers. He gave examples of Chile earthquake where only 500 people died as they were prepared to handle the earthquakes, as against Haiti earthquake where more than 2 lakh people lost their lives, as the buildings were not earthquake resistant and the people were not prepared to handle the situation. He also spoke about the 8.9magnitude Japan earthquake and said that Japan had a trained force of 900 volunteers in the area, who immediately started search and rescue and saved millions of lives.

DC Anantnag stressed on the need to have proper machines to handle disasters and more importantly to have trained manpower behind these machines. He appreciated the role of Civil Defence Organisation in training the community to handle such situations. Others who spoke on the occasion include DIG Civil Defence Mubarak Ahmed Ganai, Chief Warden CD Baramulla, Dr Inayat Mir, Dy Director, Fire Services Anantnag, Mohammed Ashraf, & Prof Shahid Murtaza from Degree College Anantnag. Safdar Hussain was the stage secretary.