One of the cyclone shelters developed by IIT Kharagpur professors Sriman Kumar Bhattacharyya and Gopal Chandra Mitra (Mriganka)Two IIT Kharagpur professors who have designed the shelters that saved thousands of lives after Cyclone Fani hit Odisha last Friday said the lessons of the 1999 supercyclone were the trigger behind their project. The Odisha State Disaster Mitigation Authority, a wing of the state government, took up the project in association with the IIT. Lunch being served at a cyclone shelter in Pakhar of Balasore district after Cyclone Fani made landfall in Odisha on Friday. “Another unique feature of the cyclone shelters is that they can be put to many uses. IIT Kharagpur director Parthapratim Chakrabarti said the project had to overcome several hurdles, including audit objections.

Source: The Telegraph May 05, 2019 20:26 UTC