(Source: businessinsider.in)
With communication lines down and the sheer scale of the disaster in Nepal making things unmanageable, India is sending UAVs or unmanned aerial vehicles to Kathmandu to map the destruction in the neighbouring country and help rescue efforts.
Sources said the UAVs, under the operational command of National Disaster Response Force (NDRF), will reach Kathmandu on Monday and begin operations immediately as time is running out.
“The sheer scale of disaster is so huge that Nepalese authorities, despite their best efforts, are overwhelmed and their infrastructure is under severe stress. We don’t even know exactly where and what building has collapsed. Since communication lines are down, there is little information coming from the public either. UAVs will help us map the destruction in the city and channelize resources accordingly,” said an NDRF officer.
NDRF IG Sandeep Rai Rathod confirmed the development and said, “We are at the operational command of Nepalese authorities and doing our best to rescue people wherever we are being deployed. The first 72 hours are crucial as after that, chances of those trapped surviving is minimum. We are thus deploying all resources to save as many lives as possible.”
NDRF sources said the UAVs will also help in locating survivors in half-collapsed buildings and use it to look through balconies or windows for any trapped victims. “We are already using eight sniffer dogs to find any signs of life in the debris,” said Rai.
To ease the burden on Nepal, NDRF has been supplied 33 vehicles to ferry injured to the hospital by SSB which guards the Indo-Nepal border.
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Alan is serial entrepreneur, active angel investor, and a drone enthusiast. He co-founded DRONELIFE.com to address the emerging commercial market for drones and drone technology. Prior to DRONELIFE.com, Alan co-founded Where.com, ThinkingScreen Media, and Nurse.com. Recently, Alan has co-founded Crowditz.com, a leader in Equity Crowdfunding Data, Analytics, and Insights. Alan can be reached at alan(at)dronelife.com
thanks for sharing it always feels good when you see people are making efforts to make each others life better. i am proud to be an indian.
It’s great to see how many people and groups are helping the rescue efforts. In some villages, about 90% of the houses have collapsed. The death toll could go up to 10,000 because information from remote villages hit by the earthquake is yet to come in.
only God can help them, sorry I can not do more.