West Bengal gets Odisha's muscle in cyclone restoration work

BHUBANESWAR: A day after chief minister Naveen Patnaik spoke to his West Bengal counterpart Mamata Banerjee and offered help in the aftermath of Cyclone Amphan, a joint team of Odisha Fire Service (OFS) and Odisha Disaster Rapid Action Force (ODRAF) left for the neighbouring state on Saturday to assist in the restoration work.
While fire service personnel were earlier engaged in other states to carry out post-disaster rescue and restoration work, ODRAF is being pressed into service outside Odisha for the first time. ODRAF is a dedicated wing of the Odisha Police to carry out rescue and restoration work in the aftermath of natural disasters.

“Cyclone Amphan is one of the worst disasters to hit West Bengal. The people of Odisha stand by West Bengal during this unprecedented crisis. Odisha has sent a team of 500 members, including 300 fire personnel & 10 ODRAF teams to assist in relief & rescue operations,” Naveen tweeted on Saturday.
The joint rescue teams left for West Bengal by road in around 50 vehicles from Cuttack late in the evening. They are likely to reach Kolkata in the early hours of Sunday. “We are carrying adequate number of power saws, tree cutting tools and inflatable tower lights to carry out rescue and restoration work that will mostly involve tree cutting, removal of debris and road clearance. We will start work from Sunday morning itself,” said a fire service officer.
OFS has earned praise from other states for its efforts in relief and restoration work. Its personnel carried out rescue operation in Andhra Pradesh during Cyclone Hudhud in October 2014 and in the Kerala flash flood of August 2018. It was also involved in the rescue of trapped miners from a coal mine in Meghalaya in December 2018.
Though other states have firefighters, OFS said its personnel are specially trained not just to douse flame, but to also carry out search and rescue operations in the aftermath of calamities, in flooded rivers and rough sea. “I have visited several states and closely observed the functioning of fire service departments. I realised that the OFS personnel are the best as they are more organised and specially trained in life support, advance life support, flood and cyclone disaster response, emergency response to rail transport accidents, collapsed structure search and rescue operations and underwater rescue operations,” a senior fire service officer said.