Hyderabad: A portable disaster management system that can be installed within an hour and can provide rescue teams exclusive communication channels has been developed jointly by Indian and Japanese scientists.
The researchers from IIT-Hyderabad, National Geophysical Research Institute, IIT Kanpur, IIIT Hyderabad, India Meteorological Department, and IIT Madras and the University of Tokyo and Keio University in Japan developed the technical systems to enable communications during emergency rescue operations and post-disaster restoration.
The system, which was demonstrated in the city on Thursday, allows the early detection of changes in climatic conditions through continuous data collection and sets up a communication network during disasters for rapid and optimal resource distribution. The project titled Information Network for Natural Disaster Mitigation and Recovery (Disanet) started in 2010 as a joint project by Indian and Japanese scientists to minimise the impact of earthquakes and weather disasters.
India and Japan have suffered natural disasters and experiences have shown that building rapidly deployable robust communication systems is the key to post-disaster rescue. A three-pronged strategy is adopted to achieve the goals, acquiring earthquake and weather data through sensor networks, to develop emergency and post-disaster communication system and development of information sharing platforms and resources.
Prof. U.B. Desai, director-IITH said, “The project was challenging as it entailed involvement of disciplines across engineering and environmental sciences and gathering and analysis of a large amount of data. We thank our partners in India and Japan for developing a system that not only furthers the understanding of natural disasters but also helps to reduce loss of life and property.”
While the strong motion sensors have been deployed in the foothills of the seismically active Himalaya, the building sensors were installed in Chandigarh. The project is being funded by the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) and the Japan Science and Technology Agency (JST) and will end in March 2015. JICA is supporting IITH’s campus development through an ODA loan.
