Resuscitation Potentials and the Challenges for Mass Resuscitation in the National Disasters of the Peruvian and Central American Earthquakes, Hurricanes, and Floods

Abstract

As many as one million earthquakes occur each year. Their locations, related to population densities, determine the quantity and in some degree the type and severity of the casualties. A large number are related to the acute respiratory injuries from heavy debris compression of respiratory movements of entombed victims. A much larger number are related to secondary pollution and suffocation caused by smoke from spontaneous ignition, burning buildings, ignition of gas lines and from short-circuited electric cables. These are intensified by secondary ignition of flammable gasoline, fuel oil, and alcoholic beverages, as their containers rupture from explosions, heat expansion, and foreign body projectiles which destroy glass and metal containers in such a holocaust of the violent forces of earthquake.