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Mangaluru, Apr 30: Yet another case of covid-19 reported in the coastal city of Mangaluru today.  

The Dakshina Kannada district administration confirmed that a 58-year-old woman hailing from Boluru area in the city was tested positive for the coronavirus.

The woman was undergoing treatment in First Neuro Hospital at Padil where a woman from Bantwal (identified as P-501), who died of coronavirus had undegone treatment before being shifted to Wenclock. 

With this, total number of positive cases in Dakshina Kannada district has gone up to 22.

 Mangaluru, July 18: The coastal districts of Dakshina Kannada and Udupi recorded a total of 346 covid positive cases in last 24 hours. Dakshina Kannada recorded 4 new deaths.

While DK recorded 237 positive cases, neighbouring Udupi saw 109 people testing positive. It may be recalled that DK and Udupi had reported a combined record spurt of 347 Covid-19 cases for a single day on Thursday. 

Dakshina Kannada 

As many as 26,368 samples have been sent for tests so far. Among them 23,096 have turned out negative, and 3,311 people have received positive report. Currently there are 1,848 active cases while 1,387 persons have recovered. 109 patients were discharged from Wenlock as well as private hospitals today. Including today’s four deaths, 75 people have succumbed to covid. Among them 12 are from other districts.

The patients whose deaths were reported today are a 74-year-old female from Puttur who was also suffering from heart disease and asthma, a 67-year-old male who was suffering from pneumonia and was on ventilator, and two females aged 49 and 61 from Mangaluru who suffered cardiac arrest.

Udupi

With 109 new cases, the total number of covid positive cases reported in the district mounted to 2088. Among new cases 58 belong to Udupi taluk, 40 are from Kundapur and 11 from Karkala. 

A total of 24,382 samples have been collected so far, including 524 on Saturday, out of which 17 are coronavirus suspects and 317 are COVID contacts. Out of them, 21,757 samples have turned out to be negative, including 292 on Saturday, and 537 reports are awaited.

As many as 1,586 patients have been discharged so far including 43 on Saturday, and 492 cases are currently active. Ten deaths have occurred so far. One positive case has been transferred to Dakshina Kannada.

Jan 2: A year after 12,000 acres of forests in Bandipur went up in smoke, the Karnataka Forest Department is gearing up for the summer even as the Forest Survey of India (FSI) has cautioned that 22.78 lakh acres (9,222 sq km) or about 20% of the green cover spread across three districts in the central part of the state is fire-prone.

The FSI studied forest fire incidents across the country between 2004-05 and 2017 before coming up with state-specific inputs.

According to the 13-year observation, Karnataka has 7,352 “fire points” or areas measuring 5 km X 5 km with frequent fire incidents.

Though the number is lower compared to states like Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh and Odisha with over 20,000 points, the sheer spread of the fire-prone area itself is a challenge for the Karnataka Forest Department.

According to data, about three lakh acres (1,199.9 sq km) of forest area is very highly fire prone with 26 to 52 fire incidents in 13 years. This is followed by 7.6 lakh acres (3,067 sq km) of “highly fire prone” areas with an average of one to two incidents every year.

Almost all of the “red alert” areas are concentrated in Uttara Kannada, Chikkmagaluru, Shivamogga and Chamarajanagar districts. As temperature rises at the end of January, so does the risk of forest fires, requiring officials to be on vigil till the end of summer.

After an investigation into the Bandipur blaze revealed that faulty fire lines and poor supervision were the reason for the spread of the fire, the department has come up with a multi-pronged approach to prevent similar incidents this year.

“After the Bandipur incident, we have created a fire cell and a standard operating procedure (SOP) which everyone has to follow. Firstly, a fire management plan is prepared and approved by a competent authority.

The SOP has well defined firelines which have to be executed by December-end and burning must be completed by January 15,”  Principal Chief Conservator of Forests (Head of Forest Force) Punati Sridhar told DH.

He said that to ensure its strict implementation, GPS readings of firelines are to be submitted for random verification.

“All the required equipment from fire jackets to shoes, gloves, backpack sprayers and tractors mounted with 2,000-5,000 litre tanks with high pressure pumps will be deployed at vantage points,” he said.

In addition, the department’s fire cell works in collaboration with the Karnataka State Remote Sensing Applications Centre (KSRSAC) to give fire alerts within half and hour of an area catching fire and detected by satellites.

“Earlier, the gap used to be four hours by when the fire would have spread beyond control. Now, with reduced time gap, it would be easier to control fire early,” he added.