IRAN EARTHQUAKE

[Guest]

December 2003, at 01:57 hrs GMT (05:27 hrs local time), an earthquake of magnitude 6.7 struck the city of Bam, Kerman Province in southeastern Iran. The number of casualties and overall affected is expected to be high due to most houses being built with mud. The media report that the earthquake may have killed at least 4,000 people in the city of Bam, whose population is 80,000. It is also reported that the earthquake destroyed 60 percent of the houses in the city of Bam and the medieval fortress, a massive, 2,000-year-old structure that sits on a cliff near the city and attracts thousands of tourists each year.

An UKFSSART team comprising of personnel from Kent, Hampshire and Essex have left the UK tonight on a specially chartered flight to Iran. The UKFSSART team is led by Simon Webb from the ODPM and Peter Crook (Hampshire Fire & Rescue Service). The team are well equipped for both search and rescue tasks, equipment includes sophisticated listening equipment, minature cameras, drills, cutting equipment, electrical generators and emergency shoring equipment that can be used to support damaged structures. The team also includes two experienced trauma-specialist doctors and limited medical supplies.

[Guest]

The UK SAR Team arrived at Kerman at 0350 UTC, and 22 members have already been transported to BAM by Iranian AF IL76. The remainder are expected to travel to BAM by IAF C130 shortly. The UK Search & Rescue Team comprises 67 members from UKFSSART, RAPID, BIRD, IRC and CANIS. As well as the usual specialist search equipment, they have with them 4 search dogs.

[Guest]

A situation report received overnight from the team indicates that a small party were flown down to Bam shortly after arrival at Kerman. The remainder of the team were to follow in another plane. However, the plane did not materialize and they have spent the day traveling to Bam by bus. They arrived outside the city, which is in chaos and totally congested, during the night. It is highly unlikely that they will be able to get to work until Sunday morning. The small party that flew down earlier have managed to carry out a recce of the city by air and have contacted people on the ground.

A further report from Simon Webb received in the early morning confirms that all team members are fit and well. The city of Bam has been sectorised and the UK Team are working in their designated sector.

[Guest]

A report from James Brown (DFID) confirms that most of the UK team are now operating from the Army base in Bam. Rapid UK are based at a stadium about 3 kms away. During the morning the team, following consultation with the authorities in the area, will start to scale down their search and rescue efforts.

[Guest]

The UK team have completed their search & rescue operations and have withdrawn from the city of Bam. With the assistance of the UNDAC team, transport arrangements are being made in order that the team can return to the UK.

The death toll continues to rise, reports indicate that 28,000 bodies have already been found and some authorities estimate that up to 50,000 may of died. The severity of the earthquake, the time of day it occurred and the type of construction prevalent in the city are some of the reasons behind the high death rate and the small number of survivors that required rescue.

[Guest]

The UKFSSART team arrived back at Stanstead Airport at 22.30 on the 30th December. All team members are safe and well and have returned to their respective brigades. A report of the team's activities will appear on the web site once debriefs have been undertaken.

[Peter Crook]

As Dave has said above we have now arrived back safely, if a bit tired.
There will be full reports circulated in due course but I thought I would submit a summary of the team's activities.
The mobilisation was relatively fast with the team in the air only 6 hours after the 'GO'. On arrival at Kerman the RAPID team were almost immediately flown the 200k to Bam and were working about 28 hours after the quake. Unfotunately we waited in vain for another aircraft and 5 hrs later got two coaches and a truck to drive down. This went well for three hours and about 5 miles from Bam when the traffic came to a halt. It then took another 11 hours to get the vehicles through.  We slept for the remaining two hours of darkness and then set up camp properly while trying to get a work area allocated by the LEMA.  The combined IRC, BIRD, CANIS and UKFSSART teams were deployed to Zone 5 and spent all day checking buildings and conducting searches where possible live casualties may have been.
The team returned to report that they believed all viable sites in zone 5 had been cleared and no live casulaties were found.  IRC did conduct a short nightime recce of the same area with the same result.
It was obvious that the type of construction meant that virtually all the buildings crumbled into small pieces and left no survivable voids. All the other international teams working in the other zones reported the same results and the opinion was already that no-one would probably be rescued alive.  However we extended the search the next day to other areas and responded to several specific reports of possible live casualties.  The same pattern emerged with all alerts proving false with no live rescues made.  Although there were rumours of live rescues none of these were confirmed.  
A decision was made to accelerate the relief effort and scale down SAR so we prepared to pull out at the end of the 2nd full day of searching (3rd day for RAPID).
We departed Bam at midnight on 29th, eventually left Kerman airport at 1410 and arrived back at Stansted at 2230.
The mission failed to carry out any live rescues but nonetheless provided the local population with confirmation of dead relatives and proof that the world cared.  They clearly appreciated our efforts and as in other deployments it was humbling for us to be treated so kindly by people who had suffered such a tragedy.
In a miniature tragic replica those of us from Hampshire had the added twist of a former colleague, Gavin Sexton sadly being killed in the earthquake while on the last leg of a world tour. Two BIRD team members uncovered his body and we later realised the connection. His body had to be buried in Bam but the Hampshire team went to pay their respects at the spot he died and were able to recover his rucksack containing all his belongings. This included photographs, route maps and gifts etc. We have since returned these to his family and informed them of everything we could about his last days. A small but significant help to them which they were extremely thankful for.
Perhaps a reflection of the whole mission!    

My thanks to the whole UKFSSART team who went and performed very professionally throughout.

Peter Crook
Hampshire UKFSSART
Operational Commander for Bam Earthquake Deployment

[Guest]

Given that you seem to have a lot to say about the ones you go to maybe you could contribute to welshblokes poser regarding the one you didn't attend. My personal opinion is that there might not have been sufficient media in attendance. As an outsider looking in it seems to me that during 'Bam' some rescue organisations ('RAPID' in particular) were preoccupied with live broadcasting to the point that i thought ''what is the emphasis, media marketing or rescue.''

[Guest]

I would concur with the last guest's message. Having been involved with the Glasgow factory incident I must say that almost every 'normal' firefighter, police, ambulance and ngo member was disgusted by two teams (UKFSSART & IRC) who seemed to want to do little more than pose in front of cameras and give interviews - despite Police and Fire briefs not to do so. In fact I almost took the mobile phone from IRC's media officer to shove it somewhere because it distracted us from our work constantly.

A very sad state of affairs - most of us were there to find casualties - not self promote and I think you need to either realise that what the job is about or pack up, get out of the service and let the rest of us get on with the job.

[Guest]

What is a very sad state of affairs is that anyone could think that any of the organisations that attended would be there for any other reason than to try to save life.

However in the case of the non governmental organisations; there is a need to get exposure as they are charities and are sponsored and have to raise funds to provide the service they do.

The UKFSSART have just been the recipients of a seriously large amount of funding with more to come. As have many of the brigades (from both sides of the border) that provided USAR skills and personnel at Glasgow.
The public have a right and an expectation to see and hear how their money is being spent.

Much more importantly they have the right to see that the emergency services are doing everything they can.

The relatives of the people trapped at such incidents will always want to hear everything they possibly can about the way these incidents are dealt with.

To believe this work can be done without addressing this side of the job is grossly naïve.

Furthermore there is a huge amount of experience and skill amongst the ranks of UKFSSART and some of the NGOs. It should not be dismissed lightly