War and our Cities – are we ready???

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A war is never an answer to any issues. The recent war happening between Russia and Ukraine is not called for. Whatever the reason or whoever the instigator still I think a war is not a solution by any means. I really hope there are no more wars. This blog though is not on this topic.

War started in Ukraine with Russia attacking. News channels across the globe flashed this news. While these news channels kept projecting the visuals etc I remember two words being commonly said in all. One was the word siren and the other bunker. So, whenever the city officials felt that there might be some airborne attack nearing a city the sirens went up. As soon as the sirens went up, the people need to be prepared for the eventualities and need to be moving themselves to safe places. For this they had the bunkers. Many of these bunkers, the channels described, were from the World War II era. In some cities where there were no bunkers or they were not available nearby, I could see the news channels showing people taking refuge inside the underground metro stations etc.,

Now here I thought, what if there is a war in which India engages (hopefully this will not happen – India is a peace loving country) and some country attacks our cities. That’s when I thought are our cities war ready. Will we have the sirens sounding loud? And if they sound loud where are we to take refuge in?

Sirens, I don’t think are installed in any city in India. I don’t know, I am not sure, I am not aware. May be I don’t know and I am not aware may be there are sirens installed. If no siren is installed what happens if a war happens? If the sirens are actually installed and if they go out loud and clear will our people know what it sounds like and what one needs to do when one hears the sound of the siren or alarm. I would like to just quote a small incident. Recently there was a fire drill in my apartment. As per the procedure, the fire engine will ring the siren and the people have to automatically come down thinking there was an emergency (this was not told to the residents). The siren went, not even 4 people turned up from 80 apartments. Either they did not hear the alarm or they did not know this was an alarm. So if at all there are alarms or sirens ringing loud during any air attack, do we people know what to do?

The second word that was heard was bunker. Where do we run to protect ourselves? Where are the bunkers? If not bunkers where are the metro stations? Myself staying in Nerkundrum may be I will go to Tirumangalam metro station!!! So may be lakhs of people need to be accommodated in each of these metro stations. What am I talking about??? Is it even possible? Where does one go?

There were also news reports that to confuse the advancing Russian army Ukraine officials changed the names of the sign boards etc. Here in this case I think we don’t have problem. Any invading army for that matter even if they follow our correct road signage’s might find it difficult to reach the destination as we people very much aware of the city itself find it difficult to navigate through. We are at an advantage!!!! I really think we will not go into a war like situation but if we do go to are we prepared????

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