Above, working together with the New Zealand Task Force and with the use of a New Zealand Fire Service's aerial fire-fighting/ rescue appliance, an SCDF rescuer searches a partially collapsed 3-storey building at Lichfield Street.
27 February 2011 --
Herald Sun reports that the death toll climbed to 146 with another 200 people who remain unaccounted for after the 6.3-magnitude quake.
Most of these Urban Search and Rescue Teams (USAR Teams) in Christchurch are INSARAG certified. Read the
INSARAG guidelines, especially Annex L, from page 123 onwards, for equipment lists for the various team classifications (be it light, medium or heavy). Further, the INSARAG Guidelines have been endorsed in the dedicated United Nations General Assembly Resolution 75/150 of 16 December 2002 (see
link). There are also police, military and INSARAG certified international rescue teams at work from:
(i) Australia {300 Australia police from various states and numerous Australian state USAR Teams, including a 72 member New South Wales team, a 70 member team from Queensland and 20 tons of gear, 3 dogs and 22 tons of gear, and another team from South Australia};
(ii) Japan {a 63 member USAR Team, 3 dogs and 10 tons of gear};
(iii) Republic of China (Taiwan) {a 22 member rescue team, 2 dogs and 2 tons of gear};
(iv) People's Republic of China (PRC) (a team of 10 from the Chinese Earthquake Administration);
(v) Singapore {a 55 member USAR Team, 3 dogs, 10 tons of gear and over a hundred soldiers};
(vi) Britain {a 63 member USAR Team, 9 tons of gear}; and
(vii) US {a 80 member USAR Team from Los Angeles, 40 tons of gear plus numerous other resources},
and there's also a
Global USAR Directory, for those interested.
