How do they know how many people died so soon after a major disaster?

Question

In Turkey and Syria now they’re saying 1,800 people died already. Is it as simple as counting the bodies and reporting that?

In: 6513

Answer 1

1. Look at who is reported missing.
2. Look at which buildings collapsed who was likely to be there at the time of the incident.
3. Compare to similar incidents.

Then you report confirmed deaths and estimated deaths. Confirmed deaths are the ones you know, and none other. Estimated deaths is an estimate based on how many people are missing or lived/worked in collapsed buildings.

Then compare to similar incidents, if you know from experience that 30% of the people reported missing in such incidents end up being found alive later, you pretty much multiple (Number of Missing Persons) * (Number of people missing*(Probability that missing persons turn out to be dead/100)).

So if you got 3000 people missing and a 30% are likely to be reports made in error or people turning up later, you most likely have 2100 dead.