Disaster Information Transfer exercises successful

Irangika Range

The Disaster Management Centre (DMC) successfully conducted the Disaster Information Transfer Exercises on Tuesday to prevent unnecessary panic when transferring information during times of disasters covering national and community level organisations.

The DMC’s Director General Major General Gamini Hettiarachchi said at a meeting that this exercise was the first conducted in the Colombo and Gampaha Districts with the assistance of the Meteorology Department, Irrigation Department, National Building Research Organisation, Police, Media, District Secretaries, Divisional Secretaries and Grama Niladharis.

“For preparation of an exercise, a series of meetings were held with participating organisations to discuss and establish the proper information flow and information transfer procedures under the current institutional framework. This rehearsal is expected to be conducted islandwide to face any disasters, preventing panic among the public,” he said.

A JICA (Japan International Cooperation Agency) team conducted a comprehensive study on disaster management in Sri Lanka and provided technical support for the implementation of the exercise.

Based on the established information flow and procedure, the exercise was conducted with an assumed situation of the dangerous flood of 1989 in the Kelani Ganga basin to check the effectiveness and efficiency of accurate information transferring system.

He said during the exercise, the information was properly transferred from the national to local level and the appropriateness of information transferring was confirmed.

“We will improve the communication system by setting up an islandwide Radio Trunking Network to streamline data transferring.” He said the DMC expects to implement this system through the 25 District Disaster Management Centres and each unit will be responsible for each district.