City Poorly Equipped To Handle London-Like Blasts

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What if terrorists strike city?
Capital Poorly Equipped To Handle London-Like Blasts
The Times of India

Bangalore: Bangalore has been classified a high-risk zone by the Centre, because of the presence of key defence establishments — Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd, Aeronautical Development Agency, Gas Turbine Resource Establishment, Indian Space Research Organisation — and the booming software industry.

But is the city administration prepared to handle crises like 9/11 or 7/7? The Sunday Times of India spoke to the police, fire force, civil defence, civic agencies and others eliciting an answer to this. Almost everyone thought much needs to be done.

Vidhana Soudha, ISRO, HAL, defence establishments, Wipro and Infosys campuses, airport, Kempe Gowda bus-stand, City and Cantonment Railway Stations, Iskcon temple and other religious places, Majestic area, M.G. Road, Commercial Street, Jayanagar Shopping Complex, Brigade Road and Houses of VVIPs have been listed as sensitive.

The disaster management plan is only on paper, despite casualties likely to be high in Bangalore in case of bombings like the one in London. Traffic jams will make it impossible for emergency services to reach the spot on time. For the whole of the city, there are only two multi-facility ambulances, both attached to private hospitals. Others are makeshift tiny vans.

“Our bus stand, railway station and airport are still to evolve a plan to provide life-saving medicare. Sirens installed to warn the public have not been working for several years,’’ an expert said. The railway station and bus-stand still have sandfilled buckets to put off fires. Also, there is a dearth of gascutters and other equipment to rescue trapped persons.

There should be coordination among the police, Bangalore City Corporation, Bescom, BWSSB, intelligence wing, hospitals, civil defence officials and fire force team in emergencies. “But the Total Preparedness Team, with officials from all these departments, has not met in the last two years,’’ a civil defence warden said.

A senior police officer said, “We should collect specific inputs on threats and not generalised messages.’’ Anti-sabotage and bomb-detection squads are not in good shape. Preparedness of the police force is below average, the officer admitted.