"Remarkable Number" of People Pulled from the Rubble
A remarkable number of survivors have been pulled from the rubble in Haiti, according to disaster experts. How did they survive?
The news from Haiti gets worse - the unofficial death toll stands around 200,000. The loss and suffering are mind-boggling.
In the midst of so much destruction, one small and unexpected meme has emerged. As Michael Phillips and Joe Lauria write in The Wall Street Journal today, dozens of people have been saved by search and rescue teams. They call it "one of the defining features of the Haitian quake: the remarkable number of people rescued from collapsed buildings.""The search and rescue has been a fantastic success this time," Sir John Holmes, the United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator told The Journal. "They've pulled out more people than is normally the case."
So far, some 90 people have been rescued by 43 international teams, according to the UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. That figure does not count those saved by ordinary Haitians digging with their shovels, sticks and their bare hands.
Why have some Haitians survived as many as six days under the rubble?
A key factor, Sir John explained in The Journal, is "the nature of some of the buildings: collapsed pre-pressed concrete slabs, which tend to leave gaps when it crashes down. It crushes some people horribly, but it can leave gaps for people to survive miraculously." He said other advantages are Haiti's mild weather, which helps trapped people survive, and the fact that rescue teams arrived very quickly.The woman rescued from her bed "was lying face down on the mattress
with the first-floor ceiling pressing her down," said Brian Miura, an
emergency room physician from Torrance, Calif., who was part of the Los
Angeles Country team that saved the woman.
