Pacific Geoscience Center, Sidney, Canada.
International Centre for Earth Simulation Foundation, Geneva, Switzerland. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7250-3649.
Am J Disaster Med. 2021;16(1):49-57. doi: 10.5055/ajdm.2021.0386.
Medical responses to fatal earthquakes have to be rapid to save lives. Here we report the QLARM alert that was issued less than an hour after the magnitude 7.3 Kermanshah, Iran, earthquake of 2017 and the following medical response. The near-real-time estimates of fatalities were 520, on average, and it took official and news reports about 2 days to settle on a minimum of 630 fatalities as a final count. The response of various Iranian agencies was rapid and effective, facilitated by the relatively small area of the disaster (radius of about 50 km). Although this disaster was not large enough to require international first responders to rush to the scene, it is clear that in very large earthquake disasters, a fast, accurately informed response saves lives. For international teams to be of optimal use, the locations and functionality levels of health facilities should be known. This information could be included in the earthquake alerts, but the necessary worldwide data on hospitals are currently not available.
医疗应对致命地震必须迅速，以拯救生命。在这里，我们报告了 QLARM 警报，该警报在 2017 年伊朗克尔曼沙阿 7.3 级地震发生不到一个小时后发布，并随后进行了医疗响应。死亡人数的近乎实时估计平均为 520 人，官方和新闻报道大约需要两天时间才能确定最终死亡人数至少为 630 人。由于受灾地区相对较小（半径约 50 公里），各种伊朗机构的反应迅速而有效。尽管这场灾难还没有大到需要国际急救人员赶赴现场，但很明显，在非常大的地震灾害中，快速、准确的信息响应可以拯救生命。为了使国际团队得到最佳利用，应该知道医疗设施的位置和功能水平。这些信息可以包含在地震警报中，但目前全球范围内还没有关于医院的必要数据。
