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Handling Mass Death by Integrating the Management of Disasters and Pandemics: Lessons from the Indian Ocean Tsunami, the Spanish Flu and Other Incidents
Author(s) -
Scanlon Joseph,
McMahon Terry,
Van Haastert Coen
Publication year - 2007
Publication title -
journal of contingencies and crisis management
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.007
H-Index - 51
eISSN - 1468-5973
pISSN - 0966-0879
DOI - 10.1111/j.1468-5973.2007.00511.x
Subject(s) - pandemic , economic shortage , mass casualty , mass casualty incident , business , certainty , work (physics) , medical emergency , political science , poison control , suicide prevention , medicine , covid-19 , engineering , government (linguistics) , disease , mechanical engineering , linguistics , philosophy , epistemology , infectious disease (medical specialty) , pathology
At first glance, there appear to be significant differences between mass death from disasters and catastrophes and mass death from pandemics. In a disaster or catastrophe the major problem is identifying the dead and, sometimes, determining cause of death. This can be very frustrating for next of kin. In a pandemic, the identity of the dead is usually known as is the cause of their death. There is an immediate certainty in pandemic death. Despite these major differences there are many similarities. Because it takes time to identify the dead after a disaster or catastrophe, there is a steady release of bodies for cremation or burial, just as in a pandemic. In both types of incidents, there tends to be a shortage of supplies and personnel and, therefore, a need for use of volunteers. There are also massive amounts of paper work. This would suggest a need in both cases for stockpiling and for training of volunteers. And, although this does not always happen, both types of incidents tend to strike harder among the poorer elements in cities yet both create serious economic problems. Despite these many similarities, planning for the first tends to be done by emergency agencies, especially the police; planning for the second by health agencies. Given the many similarities this separation makes no sense. Since both types of mass death incidents lead to similar problems, it would make sense to take an all‐hazards approach to planning for dealing with mass death.