- With around 17% of coast line ( 480kms), Odisha faces around 35% of the cyclonic storm along with tidal surge.
- The State is sixth most cyclone prone area of the World
- During last ten years Odisha faced seven very severe to extreme severe cyclones.
Bhubaneswar: August 12: looking into increased frequency and intensity of the cyclones in the context of changing climatic conditions, Odisha shall strengthen the saline and flood embankments soon.
Chief Secretary Suresh Chandra Mohapatra has directed the Water Resources Department to prepare the action plan.
In a meeting on the issue, Principal Secretary Water Resources Smt. Anu Garg outlined the changing coastal characteristics and existing infrastructure for checking tidal surge for discussion.
Presenting the details, Principal Secretary Smt. Garg said “With around 17% of coast line ( 480kms), Odisha faces around 35% of the cyclonic storm along with tidal surge. The State is sixth most cyclone prone area of the World. There are also flat terrains with fertile agricultural land with dense population adjacent to the coast line”.
Reviewing the current scenario, Sri Mahapatra directed the department to identify the vulnerable locations and tracks where there would be probability of the tidal ingress to the land.
Development commissioner Pardeep Kumar Jena directed to do a scientific assessment of the coastal geo-physical features for locating the areas where engineering intervention could be a solution.
Chief Secretary also asked to identify ‘at risk’ areas from where permanent evacuation would be the only scientific solution.
Review showed at around 1,636 km of saline protection embankments and 5,864 kms of flood protection embankments were built during the last years mostly in the districts like Ganjam, Puri, Jagatsinghpur, Kendrapara, Bhadrak and Balasore.
During last ten years Odisha faced seven very severe to extreme severe cyclones.
The coastal belt witnessed tidal surge of 3.5 mt to 4.5 mts at the time of cyclones thereby causing large scale saline inundation.
In the context of increasing frequency and intensity of the cyclones, there would be necessity of further raising the strengthening of the embankments.
Chief Secretary Mahapatra directed the engineers of water resource department to talk with people who live close to the sea and who have their landed property on the coastline; and, convince them about the necessity as well as utility of strengthening the saline/flood embankments.
Raising height of the embankments would save them from tidal surge and inundation in future. The department was asked to prepare the action plan focusing on the highly vulnerable tracks within a month.
