Disaster drill at a collapsed building

Abstract

  Medical disaster relief activities at buildings that have collapsed are anticipated in the scenarios caused by major earthquakes. For such activities, it is desirable that emergency services and medical teams work together using heavy equipment and carry‒out devices. However, the reality is that it is difficult to secure a site that can be used for the training of emergency teams, and this training has not yet been implemented in many municipalities. Herein, we describe an example of the cooperation between emergency services and a medical team in a disaster‒drill training operation conducted to rescue victims from a ‘collapsed’ building; for the training site, the operation was performed at one of our hospital’s buildings that was in the process of being dismantled.