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Disaster Management | How they tracked Dzongu after quake by Bijoy Gurung

How they tracked Dzongu after quake by Bijoy Gurung

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published Published on Oct 14, 2011   modified Modified on Oct 14, 2011

It would have meant endless sorties and waste of fuel for choppers but for the combined technology of GIS and GPS used by the forest department to map wildlife areas that gave the pilots the much-needed coordinates to carry out relief operations in the almost inaccessible Dzongu.

Crafted by the forest department to prepare maps meant for delineation, protection and management of wildlife areas, the Geographic Information System (GIS) and Global Positioning System (GPS) had been an immense help to both civilian and army helicopters. In aviation science, little can be done without co-ordinates, which enables every location on the surface of the earth to be specified by a set of numbers.

More than a dozen villages scattered and hidden amid dense forests of Dzongu in North Sikkim, the worst hit in the September 18 quake, had been cut off from the rest of the state because of the innumerable landslides that followed. A remote destination, the protected Lepcha reserve of Dzongu had few landmarks to identify each village. Most of the hamlets in Dzongu have hardly a dozen houses.

Little information about the extent of damage in Dzongu had reached the government and North district administration at first, prompting the use of aerial reconnaissance by army choppers and Pawan Hans helicopters operating under the Sikkim Tourism Development Corporation (STDC). But the first stumbling block for pilots was lack of addresses, or co-ordinates, in terms of aviation language.

Chungthang town and the regions above, like Lachen and Lachung, were inaccessible by road, too, and more densely populated than Dzongu. But the areas could be identified by the army from the air because of three pre-existing helipads, presence of security forces and the dual importance of border security and tourism.

In comparison, Dzongu is relatively unknown as outsiders are not allowed in this protected reserve for the indigenous tribal Lepcha community. Hence, the absence of aviation knowledge to reach and air drop relief material.

“Our pilots were familiar with the Chungthang area because of established helipads in North Sikkim and so they had had no problem reaching relief material and evacuating people. But we did not have any co-ordinates for Dzongu. Without co-ordinates, pilots don’t know where to go,” said STDC manager (operations) Tejpal Pradhan.

“Co-ordinates are like heart of aviation. Once you have the exact co-ordinates, things become much simpler and choppers don’t have to hover around, searching for the places and wasting fuel and time in the process. We got the co-ordinates of Dzongu villages from the forest department and our pilots were the first to tell the state government about the damage in Bey village in Upper Dzongu,” said Pradhan.

Bey is some 35km from Mangan, the administrative headquarters of North Sikkim. Seven villagers were killed after four houses were buried under an avalanche of rocks from the hillside following the quake. Bey and nearby villages of Sakyong and Pentong along with Tholung monastery were inaccessible because of landslides from Lingzya onward.

The coordinates helped the Pawan Hans choppers drop Sikkim Armed Police jawans, a doctor and relief material at Sakyong on September 22 in three sorties, said the STDC official.

The forest department’s knowledge of GPS and its subsequent use in Dzongu region has an interesting link. A day after the quake, state forest secretary N.T. Bhutia had been dispatched by the government to North Sikkim to oversee the relief operations and assess the damage. That was when Bhutia realised that the choppers were without co-ordinates, something that his department had.

The GPS is a satellite-based navigation system that provides information on location and time in all weather, anywhere on or near the Earth. On the other hand, the GIS is a system designed to capture, store, manipulate, analyse, manage, and present all types of geographically referenced data.

By the third day of the earthquake, coordinates arrived from the forest department, enabling helicopters to land at Sakyong for the first time.

“We were lucky to have the joint director Karma Legshey who knew about the GPS technology. He was in constant touch with the army and the STDC. He used to calculate the required co-ordinates and pass it on to the pilots. The co-ordinates enabled a helicopter to land at Sakyong for the first time with rescue workers and relief material which were provided to 60 villagers there,” said the forest secretary.

Once word got around that forest department was providing co-ordinates to the STDC choppers, the army also started asking for them.

The forest department had procured GPS (global positioning system) equipment and technology through a centrally sponsored Integrated Forest Protection Scheme. “Our staff also went to train at Forest Survey of India, Dehradun for two weeks on GPS technology. Selected forest staff members were sent to exposure trip at the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development, Kathmandu. Our primary objective was to use the GPS technology in forest management and protection. Nobody knew that it would be of such immense use in emergencies,” said Bhutia.

Joint director Karma Legshey explained that the forest department had used the GPS technology to map out the reserve forests and wildlife protected areas of Sikkim over the years.

“The reserve forests and wildlife protected areas of Sikkim have been delineated out in maps and have been digitised. Villages on the fringes of reserve forests were also marked during the process. This is an ongoing process. Our primary objective was to demarcate the forest boundaries and to manage and protect the forests along with its wildlife. The use of GPS helped settle boundary disputes and planting pillars along the forest border,” he said.

The isolated villages of Sakyong and Pentong are adjacent to the Kanchenjungha Biosphere reserve and had been marked out in the map. “From the map and the software, we can calculate its co-ordinates and also the aerial distance between two villages. All these data were provided to the relief teams and pilots,” said Legshey.

Co-ordinates provided by the forest department also enabled the central teams of experts who had come to assess the damage to land in Namprikdhang, the major gateway to Dzongu. From there, the central team made its way to Lingzya by road. Another central assessment team was dropped at Sakyong in a chopper.

Summing up his experience, Legshey said: “I believe that if this process is institutionalised and facilities like this put in place in the disaster management mechanism, then it will be of great help at the state and district levels. This has to be supported by reliable communication network,” he said.
 
 

The Telegraph, 14 October, 2011, http://www.telegraphindia.com/1111015/jsp/siliguri/story_14625494.jsp


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