Odisha's turnaround in disaster management has lessons for the world
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Today, Odisha is more resilient. Odisha’s years of planning and preparation paid off as fatalities from powerful cyclones never crossed double digits. When Cyclone Phailin struck the coast in 2013, Odisha carried out one of the most successful disaster management efforts in the world, evacuating close to 1 million people ahead of the strongest cyclone to hit the country since the Super Cyclone. In 2019, when another powerful cyclone – Cyclone Fani – struck, the Odisha government showed a high degree of preparedness and effectively evacuated about 1.2 million people based on these predictions.
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In 1999, in the wake of the Super Cyclone, Odisha became the first state in India to establish a disaster management authority. In fact, the body, now known as the Odisha State Disaster Management Authority (OSDMA), was set up well before the establishment of the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) in 2005.
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Drawing on the best technical expertise, OSDMA has built over 800 multi-purpose cyclone shelters together with evacuation roads along the state’s entire coastline. Embankments are also being built to protect seaside villages from the ingress of the sea, and several vulnerable families have been helped to shift from straw huts to new multi-hazard disaster-resilient houses.
Most importantly, Odisha is the first Indian state to have created an early warning system for disseminating critical disaster-related information to the very last mile. Nearly 1,200 villages in all the coastal districts of the state now receive cyclone or tsunami warnings through sirens and mass messaging. This early warning system, with watchtowers in over 120 coastal locations, forms the bedrock of Odisha’s disaster preparedness and response.
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