Kolhapur firefighters help rescue over 4,000 citizens

KOLHAPUR: Amid heavy rain that led to the floods in Kolhapur, the administration did not deploy the rescue teams of the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) as more than 75 firefighters of the Kolhapur Municipal Corporation’s fire department and over 25 people from various rescue groups came to the aid of flood-affected residents in the city.
The fire department employees rescued over 4,000 residents, over 150 critically ill patients from the submerged hospitals and 22 Covid patients from Covid care centres. Though six NDRF teams had reached the district, most of them were stationed along the upper stretches, in flood-affected villages and in Shirol.
Durig the 2019 floods, an NDRF team had led the rescue efforts.
Ranjit Chile, the chief fire officer of KMC, said, “We did not let the residents feel the absence of the NDRF personnel. Our firefighters swung into action. We had some challenging moments as well. Rescuing critical patients from two multi-speciality hospitals was a tough task. Most of the patients were on oxygen support. However, there were no casualties during the rescue operations.”
“The need to shift the Covid patients came as surprise to us. However, since most of our firemen were anyway involved in Covid-related works, they had a clear idea on how to save patients on oxygen support. Also, our personnel had their masks. Bt they did not have PPE kits,” he added.
The firefighters deployed to evacuate were fully vaccinated, which boosted their confidence.
The firemen are being trained to carry out rescue works in various types of disasters. They are mostly involved in fire disasters for the rest of the year. This year, the firefighters saved a person from drowning in the flooded Panchaganga river.