12 - Preparing for mass casualties - Jeffrey Martin

Reference:  Morgan, O. W., Sribanditmongkol, P., Perera, C., Sulasmi, Y., Van Alphen, D., & Sondorp, E. (2006). Mass Fatality Management following the South Asian Tsunami Disaster: Case Studies in Thailand, Indonesia, and Sri Lanka. Plos Medicine, 3(5), e195-0815. doi:</strong> 10.1371/journal.pmed.0030195 Retrieved from: Academic Search Premier

Theme:  This article discussed the difficulties with handling dead bodies in a mass casualty.

Summary:  The South Asian tsunami killed hundreds of thousands of people. This made it extremely difficult to manage all of the dead.  There were not sufficient refrigeration facilities to be able to store all of the bodies; this led to rapid decomposition and great difficulty identifying the deceased.  The inability to properly manage the dead took a huge psychological toll on the survivors who had to endure the sight, smells, and disease risk of dead bodies everywhere. 

·         Existing methods of mass fatality management are not directly transferable as they are designed for transport accidents and acts of terrorism.

·         Rapid decomposition made visual identification almost impossible after 24–48 hours.

·         The rights of survivors to see their dead treated with dignity and respect requires practical guidelines and technical support.

·         Some of the dead were buried in mass graves, the largest of which contained 60,000-70,000 victims.

·         The following recommendations were given:

o   Temporary burial in trench graves can be used if refrigeration is not available.

o   If mass graves are used, bodies should be buried in one layer to facilitate future exhumation.

o   Mass fatality plans should be included in national and local disaster preparedness activities.

Application:  No community can be fully prepared for a disaster on the size and scale of this tsunami.  This is entirely possible in the United States.  Yellowstone National Park is an active super volcano.  If we are around for the next eruption, there will be hundreds of thousands of casualties.  Many of them will be buried or unreachable, but many more will die in the following years as the Earth’s temperature drops due to ash in the atmosphere.   This is an extreme example of a  possibility.  I imagine that there are few, if any, emergency disaster plans in existence to be able to handle mega scale disasters.  We should be prepared for anything.