SDRF conducts safeguard drill in city school

Imagine a situation when a child is studying in a school and suddenly an earthquake hits the area bringing a building to collapse. The injuries in such a situation could be tremendous, however with the right knowledge on how to safeguard oneself at such times, an ill result could be averted. Based on scientific studies on such topics, the State Disaster Relief Force (SDRF) organised a demonstration in a city-based school on Wednesday.

In the demonstration, school students from a private school in Subhash Chowk area were shown a power point presentation on various disasters and how to respond to such a situation in order to stay unhurt followed by a live demonstration.

“The PPT consists of information regarding general disasters like earthquakes, fire incidents, building collapse and aquatic disaster. It informs the students on how to respond to such situations, for example, one should get under a table if an earthquake hits an area or how to tackle a situation when a building collapses” said B L Soni, Additional Director General, SDRF. Interestingly, the drive is not a first of its kind rather has been going on across the state for the past one year. “We started this drive from January this year. We have eight companies of SDRF in Rajasthan and every fortnight, the companies approach one school where the drill is conducted. Owing to various holidays and examination schedules, thus far the two companies in Jaipur have completed the demonstration in thirty schools” the ADG informed.

The official further added, “Basically it is undertaken so that the teachers, school administration and most importantly the children know not to panic in situations rather to respond to safeguard themselves. Every drill is around an hour long with fifteen minutes of PPT  presentation followed by questions from students and staff after which demonstrations are done for disasters.”