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Amateur radio operators save lives in Kerala

Discussion in 'Amateur Radio News' started by VU2IT, Aug 23, 2018.

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  1. VU2IT

    VU2IT Ham Member QRZ Page

    Amateur radio operators save lives in Kerala
    Ham operators in the Kerala state in India have been working round-the-clock for the past week, with control stations across various districts. Kerala has been hit by the worst flood and land slides in 100 years with 6 districts and neighbouring areas submerged in 7 to 15 ft of water flooded from nearby rivers. 1 Million people are in relief camps and more than 300 people dead. The utility power and mobile communication in the affected areas are cut off. HAMs gathered at the Thiruvananthapuram District Administration office where the District Emergency Operations Centre is functioning and setup an Amateur Radio Emergency Communication Control Center to work with the District Disaster Management Authority to help and support the rescue and relief operations. We have more than 120 ham radio operators all over Kerala sending in reports of people who are stranded or need medical aid. The operators include doctors, agriculturalists, IT professionals, Engineers and other professionals etc. who are volunteering their time for relief efforts. So far HAMs reported the location and other details of more than 15000 victims stranded on the roof of houses and other buildings as flood water raised up to the second floor of the buildings. There are confirmed reports of more than 1800 cases of rescue by boats/airlift reported by HAMS.
    Interestingly there were no HAM radio organizations from anywhere in India involved and the whole exercise was done by individual HAMs gathered together when the news about the flood was announced by the Government. Messages about the stranded victims and medical support requests were relayed to the nearest local control operator which in turn transmitted to the control centre in the State Capital and relayed to the authorities and forces doing search and rescue. This model worked flawlessly for 6 days till the end of search and rescue operations. Even though there was not a single national/state level HAM radio club/organization coordinated the operation, the extremely surprising gathering of individual HAMs gathered together in all districts and started functioning which later become a strong network.
    At the control centre we received messages relayed from other parts of the state and logged all communications and took further actions resulted in the rescue of over 1800 people and children. In so many cases the first information was relayed by HAMs before any other agency did.
    The operation still continues in many parts of Kerala to coordinate the distribution of relief material in relief camps.

    VU2IT
    Suwil Wilson
    Loc: MJ88mm
    Trivandrum, India

    The writer was the coordinator of the state wide operation from Thiruvananthapuram.

    Links for further news

    https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com...save-lives-in-kerala/articleshow/65466362.cms

    https://www.thehindu.com/society/ha...-room-in-the-collectorate/article24716968.ece
     

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    WJ2L and K7FYI like this.
  2. WJ2L

    WJ2L Premium Subscriber QRZ Page

    Such a natural disaster but heroic individual efforts as well! Good example of need for ham radio groups to become NGO CLUBS-working together.
     

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