Trichy: The Nagapattinam and Tiruvarur district authorities are geared up to meet any eventuality as cyclone 'Gaja' is poised to make landfall between Nagapattinam and Cuddalore coasts on Thursday as predicted by the Indian Meteorological Department (IMD). A total of 875 temporary shelters have been established in these districts to accommodate people in case of emergency.Three teams of National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) arrived in Nagapattinam district from Arakkonam to provide the required expertise to tackle a disaster, if any, when it strikes the coast. At a meeting with officials, Nagapattinam district collector S Suresh Kumar said that nine multi-purpose disaster relief centres and 22 cyclone shelters had been set up. Nearly 200 shelters have been identified to accommodate cattle. Revenue authorities have been instructed to take necessary steps to accommodate the general public should a situation arise, he said.A total of 625 buildings including schools and colleges, community centres and marriage halls have been kept ready for use as temporary shelter for the general public, he added. Fourteen static and 19 mobile medical teams have also been formed while the fisheries department has mobilised 54 boats. More than one lakh sandbags and 84 earth movers have been kept ready, he further stated.Meanwhile, Tiruvarur collector L Nirmal Raj said that 250 relief centres had been made available in the district and 212 low-lying areas identified. Commodities required for two months have been stocked in the ration shops in these areas. In all, 62 trained swimmers from the police department, 12 from the home guards and 22 from fire and rescue services would be deployed at the required spots.Besides these, 135 teams comprising 633 officers have been formed in the district to monitor various aspects of preventive, precautionary and relief measures, he further said. The PWD has stocked up one lakh sandbags, gunny bags and casuarina poles at 16 places across the district to be moved in quickly if required.

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