The Hindu        04.09.2014  

Seminar on disaster management held

The capital city is the only one in the State to be chosen among eight cities in the country to benefit from the Climate Risk Management Project in Urban Areas through Disaster Preparedness and Mitigation project, being jointly implemented by the Union government and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). 

The State's nodal agency, the Kerala State Disaster Management Authority, decided to take it one step further by organising a day-long awareness seminar for municipalities across Kerala on the best practices and tools they need to be equipped with.

Deputy Mayor G. Happykumar inaugurated the seminar held here on Wednesday. Over 50 participants representing municipalities attended the workshop, which was moderated by G. Padmanabhan, head of UNDP’s India disaster management unit. National Programme Coordinator of the Climate Risk Management Project Aabha Mishra was also present. 

The Disaster Management Cell of the capital was set up at the Corporation in 2010 and since then one of the key priorities has been to integrate climate risk reduction measures with development activities. This year, the cell has already organised training programmes for trade union workers in a bid to ‘enhance community capacities to manage climate risk in urban areas,’ officials said. 

The objective of the seminar was to share the best practices in disaster mitigation through case studies which were discussed through the day.

The concept of training local people to be the ‘first responders,’ in particular, was discussed.

The objective was to share the best practices in disaster mitigation through case studies.