If you get trapped under a collapsed building

How to attract rescuers’ attention?

It is possible to submit a voice signal, knock a fragment of a brick against a plate, a pipe, or armature. Listen. As soon as machines and mechanisms stop work, silence comes. And it means, that rescuers announce a “minute of silence”. At this particular time rescuers listen to shouts, groans, knocks reaching from depth. During the “minute of silence” rescuers conduct the strengthened investigation by means of devices and specially trained dogs. Survivors can be found by groan, shout, the dog can hear breath of the living person.

Having discovered survivors, rescuers punch a narrow well, pass through it medicines, water, products, and then extremely cautiously clear debris.

Often life and death of people is divided with a concrete plate. It’s dangerous to try to remove it at one stroke by means of the crane: fragments underneath can move and press down a person.

 In that case rescuers lift a concrete plate for some centimeters with the crane, making a split through which a doctor delivers to the victim solution of glucose for maintenance of forces, and then rescuers resume drilling a concrete plate along the edges in order to remove it as carefully as possible.

It happens that there is enough space under a collapsed building. It’s quite natural that chain smokers ache for a cigarette in such conditions. However, they have to refuse it as the smoke will destroy the rests of oxygen in a shelter that will inevitable result in death of asphyxia.

When clearing debris, it is necessary to act cautiously, first of all trying to release the victim’s head and chest.

During salvage operations it is necessary to hurry up. According to the sad statistics, 50 persons out of one thousand people trapped under debris after earthquake die each hour, i.e. practically every minute of delay costs one life of one thousand buried alive.