British professional rescue team share experiences in earthquake rescue

The search and rescue team of the British Fire Department repeatedly participated in international rescue missions and summed up some experiences and lessons in earthquake rescue .
1. Correctly understand survivors' survival time
Some people believe that people buried under pressure after 2 days of major earthquakes still hope to survive. Six or seven days later, survivors can be found to be "miraculous." However, professional search and rescue personnel do not think so. In their eyes, buildings damaged or even collapsed are filled with honeycomb-like spaces. Due to various factors, many disaster victims can tenaciously persist for many days. There are countless examples. For example, in 1985, only about one infant was rescued a week after the earthquake in Mexico, and even a 9-year-old boy was rescued 15 days after the earthquake. Therefore, as long as there is still little hope, search and rescue work should not be suspended.
2, as many as possible to send professional search and rescue personnel and emergency training of non-professionals
In many cases, non-professional rescue personnel lacked the know-how of survivors in the collapsed buildings, resulting in the loss of optimal rescue time for some victims. In addition, there are many known and unknown risk factors in the ruins of buildings. The lack of awareness of these risk factors by non-professional rescue workers can easily lead to further collapse of buildings. Professional search and rescue personnel have the right search and rescue knowledge and skills, have professional search and rescue tools and rich experience in search and rescue, can minimize the risk, and increase the survival rate of the affected people. Therefore, as many as possible experienced professionals should be involved in search and rescue work after the earthquake, and on-site emergency training for non-professional rescue workers should be strengthened.
3, search and rescue operations should continue
Search and rescue after the earthquake to a certain extent, need to selectively clean up the ruins little by little. This is a very dangerous job because of the aftershock and the instability of damaged buildings. Be extra careful. What needs to be emphasized is that while the rubble is being cleared, it is necessary to continue the search work and be ready to rescue survivors who have not been discovered before. Therefore, search and rescue work should be continuous until all damaged buildings are inspected, the rubble clean-up work is completed, and the hope of finding survivors disappears completely. Search and rescue work should be declared ended.