Special rescue services to be launched in Sindh

The director-general of the Provincial Disaster Management Authority (PDMA) announced that a unified rescue service like Punjab’s ‘Rescue 1122’ will be initiated in six divisional headquarters of Sindh.

As per reports, the future rescue service will have different teams for firefighting, ambulances and rescue operations.

The sections will be divided among different organisations as the firefighting operations will be managed by Karachi Metropolitan Corporation (KMC) and ambulances will be checked by Aman Foundation.

The PDMA will run the urban search and rescue operation, whereas, a unified call center will be set up for collecting all complaints of the three categories.

According to the plan presented by PDMA, seven teams will be made for urban search and rescue besides dedicating services of two teams for Karachi and others for each division province. In order to follow the international standard, 60 to 62 persons will be part of the urban rescue team.

A total of six stations will be established for the urban rescue team in the provincial capital Karachi, whereas, expert swimmers will be appointed in two stations to be established near the beach to handle the drowning incidents.

The PDMA director-general said that the project has been planned with the help of a global consultant and PC-1 of the rescue service will be submitted to the planning and development department.

He added that the unified rescue service project will be launched within a period of one and a half years by the fund of the World Bank (WB) after getting approved by the government.