We’ve all seen by now, The absolute outpouring of aid for the affected areas as well as multiple countries sending search and rescue teams, do they just decide they go and figure it out once they’re on the ground? Or do they talk to the affected countries and ask what resources they need, and where they’re needed before they send a team? It seems like a lot of teams were mobilized almost immediately so I can’t imagine there’s too much organization right now. I’m hoping someone has some inside information on how it would play out.
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The short version is all the coordination is set out in something called the INSARAG Guidelines which all the SAR teams are ideally supposed to follow.
[https://resources.eecentre.org/resources/insarag-guidelines/](https://resources.eecentre.org/resources/insarag-guidelines/)
Really bad and inaccurate paraphrasing follows from my own hazy memory:
Politics: The country you are going to has to give permission, that is usually by asking their embassy in your own country. Or some other method if you’re not getting a response because the embassy is swamped. If your country is sending a national SAR team and you’re an NGO SAR (a charity) then you will need to do what the national team tells you to do. Not everyone want sSAR teams from all over, either because they already have enough local resources, because they don’t trust the countries sending them, or enough SAR teams have already arrived etc
Unhappy bit: I have to explain this to help explain the teams purposes. There was a study showing fatalities increasing in steps at 24 hours and 3 days roughly. The first is thought to be from people trapped and dying of blood loss from injuries. The second is people trapped without a water source and starting to die from 3 days onwards.
Teams: For USAR (Urban search and rescue – typically earthquakes but could be flood) There’s light, medium and heavy. Light teams might be able to mobilise fast, take any transport available, and be on the ground making rescues within 24 hours. That is a big deal because of the above survivability stats. Probably carry about enough kit to throw in a land rover. Heavy teams have everything including machinery and big transport aircraft but can take longer to mobilise.
Coordination: The first SAR teams to arrive are supposed to setup a coordination centre so that all following SAR teams can immediately see the situation and coordinate taskings. Each SAR team would donate someone to the coordination centre to rotate people. Ideally this centre also is in communication with the local government and getting taskings from them.
Roles of the teams also change over time, so a light team doing a rubble tunnelling rescue to reach a survivor that has a heavy team arrive at their location would likely handover the rescue to the heavy team and switch to recon. They might move through an area marking the probability of survivors for each building and heavy teams following behind, or the government might ask them to visit local towns that have lost communications to establish what is going on.
Over time (for example 2 weeks) the operation will move from rescue to making half-collapsed buildings safe, and body recovery. Some teams are generalists and can do rescue or body recovery, others specialise. Then the big nation-rebuilding NGOs might arrive.
The SAR teams will then be leaving as their window of usefulness comes to an end, so other teams can take over and because too many teams can be a burdon on the local resources.
This is an awful summary of a big subject, so please dont get mad if you’re a reader in a USAR team and you feel wronged by the above. Clarifications welcome. [edits: so many typos…]
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