The impact of the Ockhi cyclone that claimed several lives and caused widespread damage last month could have been minimised by using non-commercial technologies for disaster management, a top expert of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) has said.

There is a reluctance to use technologies, which is a great challenge to disaster management, said Muralee Thummarukudy, Chief of Disaster Risk Reduction, UNEP.

Speaking at the ‘Start-up Charcha’ organised by Maker Village here, he said technologies that give more profit will soon become popular in the market.

He recalled that during the late 1990s, when mobile phones became popular, the fishermen from Kerala made use of the technology in a productive manner. They were able to learn the price of the fish at each market and sell accordingly.

A study was also conducted at the international level to find out how the technology was used by the fishermen in Kerala to increase their profit, he said.

Mitigating disaster

When some young entrepreneurs pointed out that there are technologies at ISRO available for ₹2,000 for fishing boats, he said people tend not to seriously consider leveraging technologies to mitigate disaster.

“We are still not able to find out how many fishermen were at sea when Ockhi hit the shores of the Indian Ocean,” he said.

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