Odisha Reaches 100 UNESCO-Certified ‘Tsunami Ready’ Villages as 74 New Sites Recognized

29 Sep 2026, 06:53 by Vinay Kakkad · KalingaTV

Bhubaneswar: A major expansion in coastal disaster defense has pushed the number of certified “Tsunami Ready” habitations in Odisha to an even 100, following the addition of 74 coastal settlements to the internationally backed preparedness initiative.

The certifications, conferred under an initiative established by UNESCO’s Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission (IOC), were finalized on Monday in Bhubaneswar during a joint session between the National Tsunami Ready Board (NTRB) and the Odisha government.

The announcement marks another benchmark in an initiative that initially took root in 2019, when two settlements—Noliasahi in Jagatsinghpur district and Venkatraipur, also known as Boxipalli, in Ganjam district—became the first communities recognized under the framework. That operational milestone established India as the earliest nation across the Indian Ocean Region to roll out the initiative, with Odisha serving as the pioneering province to ready local populations under its protocols. Another 24 villages secured accreditation in 2024 before the latest tranche pushed the count to three digits.

The latest approvals followed two days of on-site verification conducted on September 26 and 27 across five coastal belts: Balasore, Bhadrak, Kendrapada, Puri, and Jagatsinghpur. During the field checks, assessment teams evaluated local alert infrastructure, public hazard awareness, and organized response drills while engaging directly with coastal residents.

The evaluation findings were reviewed at a high-level meeting co-presided over by Balakrishnan Nair, director of the Indian National Centre for Ocean Information Services (INCOIS), and Rajesh Prabhakar Patil, managing director of the Odisha State Disaster Management Authority (OSDMA).

Board delegates subsequently met with Suresh Pujari, Odisha’s Minister for Revenue and Disaster Management, to present their conclusions. Pujari commended the board’s groundwork alongside the alertness exhibited by local populations, while outlining strategic guidance to advance the state’s maritime defense framework.

Run as a performance-evaluated community model, the UNESCO-IOC framework coordinates emergency management bodies, scientific institutions, regional administrators, and civic leadership. Its primary focus is safeguarding human lives, physical assets, and maritime livelihoods against tidal surges through early detection, community-wide literacy, and orderly evacuation protocols. The system is presently operational in 22 nations across the Indian Ocean basin.

State authorities have cataloged 381 exposed coastal settlements and hamlets as inherently vulnerable to tsunami impacts, with plans underway to train and certify every designated locality in systematic phases.