Odisha: First State With Tsunami Ready Villages

• 08 Aug 2020

• In a first two coastal villages of Odisha - Venkatraipur (Boxipalli) village of Rangeilunda block in Ganjam district and Noliasahi village of Ersama block in Jagatsinghpur district have been recognised as being “Tsunami Ready” by UNESCO for their overall preparedness to face the calamity.
• With it, Odisha became the first state in the country to have such villages and the country the first in the Indian Ocean region to achieve the honour from the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission (IOC) of UNESCO.

About Indian Ocean Tsunami Ready Programme

• The Indian Ocean Tsunami Ready Programme of IOC-UNESCO is a community performance-based programme that facilitates tsunami preparedness as an active collaboration of the community, community leaders, and national and local emergency management agencies.
• The main objective of this programme is to improve coastal community preparedness for tsunami emergencies, to minimize the loss of life and property and to ensure structural and systematic approach in building community preparedness.

About IOC-UNESCO

• The Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission of UNESCO (IOC-UNESCO), established in 1960 as a body with functional autonomy within UNESCO, is the only competent organization for marine science within the UN system.
• The purpose of the Commission is to promote international cooperation and to coordinate programmes in research, services and capacity-building, in order to learn more about the nature and resources of the ocean and coastal areas and to apply that knowledge for the improvement of management, sustainable development, the protection of the marine environment, and the decision-making processes of its Member States. In addition, IOC is recognized through the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) as the competent international organization in the fields of Marine Scientific Research and Transfer of Marine Technology.