The Prime Minister Narendra Modi chaired a follow-up meeting today, to review the progress of relief and rescue operations following the major earthquake yesterday. The meeting was attended by the Union Home Minister, Rajnath Singh, the Union Finance Minister, Arun Jaitley, the Union Minister for External Affairs, Smt Sushma Swaraj, the Defence Minister, Manohar Parrikar, the National Security Advisor, Ajit Doval, the Cabinet Secretary, Ajit Seth, the Additional Principal Secretary P.K. Mishra and senior officials from the Government, Indian Meteorological Department and National Disaster Response Force (NDRF).
The Prime Minister emphasized the need for further increasing the pace of search and rescue operations, and evacuation of stranded people from Nepal. The Prime Minister directed that in addition to the air route, the road route should also be used for evacuating stranded people at the earliest. He stressed on the need for ensuring coordination among various agencies involved in relief and rescue operations.
Earlier in the morning, the Union Home Minister, Rajnath Singh reviewed the ongoing rescue & relief operations. The meeting was attended by the Union Home Secretary, L.C. Goyal, the Secretary, Border Management, Smt. Sneh Lata Kumar, the Member Secretary National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA), R.K. Jain, the Director General, Shastra Seema Bal (SSB), B.D. Sharma and other senior officials of Ministry of Home Affairs.
Rajnath Singh spoke to the Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh, Akhilesh Yadav and the Chief Minister of Bihar, Nitish Kumar and asked them to mobilise a fleet of buses and ambulances to rescue people stranded in Nepal.
The Union Home Minister also instructed the SSB to set up camps along the border to provide medical help to tourists crossing India Nepal border. As of now, ten teams of NDRF are pressed into action and six more teams will be dispatched to earthquake affected areas in Nepal. Rajnath Singh has instructed the Bureau of Immigration to give ‘gratis visas’ to all foreign tourists stranded in Nepal who are coming to India.
Four National Disaster Response Force teams have been deployed, one each in Gopalganj, Motihari, Supaul and Darbhanga Districts of Bihar and one Team deployed in Gorakhpur, Uttar Pradesh.
A total 62 people have lost their lives in India, 259 people are reported to be injured, 56 houses/ buildings fully damaged and 248 houses/ buildings partially damaged.
A team of 31 Medical Staff – 13 Doctors and 18 paramedics with 2 tonnes of essential medicines dispatched. 4.5 tonnes of Food and 4.5 tonnes of Medicines were dispatched today. 40 tonnes of water, 100 stretchers and 35,000 food packets were also dispatched.
