Resiliency is more than Preparedness - Odisha and cyclone

More than 1.5 million people were evacuated before the cyclone Fani in just four days. The precision of cyclone prediction was pinpointed by IMD. Considering the severity of the cyclone, the casualty was only 64. All hailed Odisha for its tremendous effort to shift people to a safer region before the disaster. Well Cyclone is not a new disaster to experience for a state like Odisha. As per Saudamini’s paper “Economics of Natural Disaster”, one-fourth of cyclones that hit India are suffered by Odisha alone because of its geographical location. But Fani cyclone is third of its kind in 150 years that has affected the most cyclonic hit state.

Evacuation by Odisha Police before cyclone Fani
Photo courtesy of Odisha Police Department

This preparedness of evacuation has evolved after the Super cyclone 1999, where the casualties were more than 10,000 as per official record. Since 2013, Odisha has faced four cyclones in 6 years. In 2013, before Phailin cyclone, for the first time, vulnerable people were evacuated from the dilapidated houses. Thenceforth the life causalities due to the cyclone have reduced drastically. But after the disaster phase, the primary affected area stayed in the dark for more than 45 days. Electricians from Andhra Pradesh and Odisha worked day and night to restore it as soon as possible. The major issue without electricity was of water. Water tanks were provided by the municipality to every locality. It took more than 45 days for total restoration of electricity in the cyclone-affected region. The same was the case during Hud hud and Titli cyclone in 2014 and 2018 respectively. Nothing much has improved after that. No new learnings from those cyclones and the state happily moved on with all the praise that it received for minimal life causalities. What missed within those applauses was the pain of people after the cyclone. Life became tougher for people in post-cyclone phase. Though immediate trauma of the cyclone was more, the aftermath of cyclone in the long term was heart-wrenching. People had to start a new life from scratch. Livelihoods were lost, homes were shattered and life seems to be battered.

After cyclone Fani hit Odisha, many villages and cities of Puri and Khorda districts were in the dark without electricity for more than 60 days. In the last 3 cyclones, this was not a major issue and was never much heard of, even though the conditions were similar. One of the primary reasons was that the last three cyclones occurred in October month, which was a pre-winter/ winter month. This time unexpectedly the cyclone hit in the summer season. Though even the probability of such a disaster was always there, the disaster preparedness team never had explored it. As the days passed without electricity, the dissatisfaction and agitation were increasing among the citizen. Odisha’s coastal area has got more than seven times of Heatwave warning after the cyclone by IMD. The temperature and humidity made the situation worse. Not much help came from different states or center in terms of skilled labour to build back Odisha. The state government could have easily asked for more skilled human power from different states. The support that came from the neighbouring state was after 4 to 5 days of the cyclone. Had preparedness been well planned before, workers would have been shifted to Odisha before, or if nothing, the state could have at least asked for help before the disaster so that other states could have been prepared accordingly. Since cyclone devastation is always unpredictable, there is no harm in being prepared than being sorry.

Evacuation of the vulnerable group to cyclone resilient shelter is a challenging task to execute. It requires a lot of human power, capital investment, and coordination. With climate change, the coastal regions are facing more and more disaster than ever before. That is why the focus should be on making more resilient houses. Odisha has two housing scheme, one of the central government, PMAY, and other of its own, Biju Ghar yojana. But unfortunately, not all vulnerable groups have been benefited by it and so evacuation was called for.

People were allowed to stay for 15 days in the cyclone shelter after the disaster. After 15 days, people were homeless. No roof over their head in the summer. But as people weren’t facing such disaster for the first time, they started rebuilding their home back. The question still remains that if something similar happens in the near future, will they have to rebuild it all over again? The livelihood lost is the most painful part of such disaster. Daily waged labour, farmers and artists are the worst hit by it. In such disasters, where regaining the livelihood is a significant concern, building a home back can add more burden on them. Odisha successfully saved many lives during the disaster. How many lives it can save after the disaster is something to look forward to.

The worst effect of the cyclone was on urban infrastructure. Electric pole was uprooted, street lights were broken, buildings with glass facades were broken, structures were dismantled and telecommunication had stopped. In short, the vibrating cities have come to a standstill. Videos show how glass windows, doors, fancy roof blew during the disaster. Such structures can even hit other structure and can cause more damage. These issues can easily be tackled during the design phase by the designer. Electric cables can be underground, backup solar street lights can be kept in numbers and treated water can be stored beforehand.

Structural building problems can be worked in building bylaws. Though cyclone has never been considered in building regulation by any urban local bodies throughout India, Odisha can become an example by integrating it, just like it did by becoming first state to form disaster management authority in India. More than becoming a leader pioneer, it is the need of the state to avoid infrastructure loss and life causalities. National Disaster Management (NDM) building codes for disaster resilience suggests the specification for infrastructure and building structure for specific disaster. But it has never been considered by any local bodies. As climate change is taking its course, a state like Odisha, which is affected so frequently by natural disasters need to consider such building codes for better resilience.

Odisha is also one of the first state to have a climate change action plan. The action plan is not much in detail because of the lack of data and hence is very generic. As suggested by NDMA guideline, the state needs to do a disaster risk assessment forthwith, especially in the hazard zone. The risk assessment is a very time and capital consuming process, but for a real climate change action plan and to mitigate the frequent disaster that is going to accelerate further, the state needs to do the assessment. Social and infrastructure vulnerability assessment and exposure study will reflect the present physical condition and also helps to respond in the pre and post-disaster effectively. Just a GIS data that Kerala municipality had done for sanitation, helped a lot to the administration during Kerala flood to assist the victims.

UN defines Disaster resilient as ‘the ability of a system, community or society, exposed to hazard to resist, absorb, accommodate, adapt to, transform and reform from the effect of a hazard in a timely and effective manner including through preservation and restoration of its essential basic structure and function through risk management.’

To resist and absorb we need more resilient infrastructure, to adapt, we need more smart intervention, to transform and reform from the effect in a timely and effective manner we need better electricity, water, telecommunication network. A resilient city is a cyclic process of preparedness, disaster, response, recovery and mitigation. The state has come a long way in preparedness where it has excel in it and has become a role model for the world. Disaster and response phase is also taken care of to a large extent. But the key factor of becoming a resilient state lies in recovery and mitigation phase where the state has a long way to go.