How to protect your health in an emergency: lessons from the Christchurch earthquake
September 6, 2010 by Raquel
Filed under HEALTHCARE
Once again, the earth moved violently last weekend, this time in Christchurch, New Zealand’s second biggest city, located in the South Island.
What is unusual about this earthquake that measured 7.4 in the Richter scale, is the minimum number of causalities and the minimum attention it attracted internationally despite the massive damage and devastation. Perhaps it is because of the former that resulted in the latter. However, many people in the affected areas had neither power nor water supplies for more than 24 hours.
The minimum loss of human life in this incident is mainly due to 2 factors: One, the event happened in the early hours of Saturday morning, so that the business and commercial district, the schools, the public transport, and the roads were practically empty. Two, New Zealand, specifically the city of Christchurch seems to get top points in preparedness, which should be a lesson to all of us.
The New Zealand Ministry of Health gives some advice on how to protect your health in case of natural disasters, dated June 2006. The advise is available online or can be downloaded as a PDF. A summary of the contents are given below.
- · water
- · food safety
- · getting rid of rubbish
- · disposing of sewage
- · accommodation
- · looking after yourself
- · hazardous substances
- · volcanic ash
- · pests
The booklet has three sections that tell you how you can protect your health in an emergency by:
- · being prepared for a disaster
- · knowing what to do during a disaster
- · restoring safe conditions as soon as possible after a disaster.
On the other hand, the Christchurch quake also highlighted some limitations of the preparedness that was pointed Julia Becker, a researcher at the Massey University, located in Palmerston North, North Island. The Massey report was based on a survey conducted a year ago, September 29 in the wider Canterbury area where Christchurch is located. The survey revealed:
The respondents to the survey also believed that the risks for such disasters in their area are very low. Let the Christchurch earthquake be a model and lesson for all of us, be as government authorities, health care workers, or private individuals. As Dr. Becker wrote:
