Could British rescue teams have saved more lives?

The figures show that British rescue teams saved less lives compared to the other teams in Iran, Algeria, Turkey and Pakistan earthquakes. Kubra Yelkenci investigated the issue.

Nick Cater from the Guardian initially brought up the subject in his article after Iran earthquake:

“The British search and rescue teams arriving back from Iran have successfully proved that flying in people and dogs to scour the rubble and mud of foreign disaster zones for survivors with hi-tech gear or their bare hands is in almost all cases a waste of time, effort and money.”

Mr Cater says 68 search and rescue experts from five different UK groups with four dogs failed to find a person in Bam. He continues: “The story was much the same in other recent disasters, such as the earthquakes in Algeria, Turkey and India, after which few people have been found alive by British teams.”

In Pakistan earthquake UK Search and Rescue teams - 84 experts with 4 dogs – who rescued 13 of the total 24 survivors saved from the rubble whereas the Turkish teams saved nine and the Chinese saved three.

Paul Baker, of Hampshire Fire and Rescue Service Urban Search and Rescue (USAR) who has been abroad several times says that their teams’ failure was resulted from plenty of reasons:

“...the local teams are picking people who can be easily rescued or picking up piece of woods or looking underneath it. What we do with other people who were actually buried within the building.  We are a specialist heavy rescue team we would first locate where the person is then we would tunnel deep into the building,

“We take special equipment, cutting gear, cameras that everything to do with really technical stuff. That’s why we don’t rescue a lot of people we rescue the people that other teams cannot rescue.”

Nick Cater says that local teams have the advantage of “golden hours” which are the first 24 hours right after the disaster to find people alive, and he continues: “... it is local people who recover the vast majority of survivors, often based on knowing exactly where their families and friends were when the disaster struck.”

However, Mr Baker says: “These are actually the people who would die if we weren’t there they cannot be detected because they are too far down so that’s how we only we deal because our rescues are seven - eight hours long just walking across a rubble tunnel picking people up we can pick up four five people in initial stages in 10 minutes. So that’s why you have difference in the numbers.”

Mr Baker says that the cultural and religious aspects have also an effect on search and rescue process:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2003/dec/31/internationalaidanddevelopment.comment

http://www.humanitarianinfo.org/hic-pakistan/documents/PAK-EQ-Sitrep-No5-10oct.pdf