- Title
- Australasian and multinational disaster victim identification
- Creator
- James, Helen; Taylor, Jane
- Relation
- Forensic Dental Evidence p. 273-286
- Publisher Link
- http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-12-382000-6.00014-7
- Publisher
- Academic Press
- Resource Type
- book chapter
- Date
- 2011
- Description
- Although fierce sporting rivals, Australia and New Zealand are geographical neighbors in Australasia and are strategic allies. Cooperation between the two countries’ military, policing, and identification personnel is long-standing. Australia has a surprisingly long history of disasters dating from its colonization in 1788. Environmental disasters in Australia have ranged from cyclones, earthquakes, floods, and landslides to heat waves and bushfires. Major transport and industrial incidents have been less frequent, usually involving bus, rail, and light aircraft. To date, the national airline Qantas has not had a fatal crash. Most disasters have involved fewer than 200 dead. The largest loss of life outside warzones remains the pandemic of Spanish Flu in 1918, which caused the deaths of approximately 12,000 people. Although New Zealand is noted for both earthquake and geothermal activity, most mass fatality incidents have been transport-oriented with modest death tolls. Regionally, Australia and New Zealand sit in an area of immense geographical and climatic instability, with both natural disasters and man-made incidents occurring on a large scale across the region. The Indian Ocean Tsunami of 2004, which was precipitated by undersea movement of tectonic plates, killed in excess of 200,000 and precipitated a worldwide emergency response. Contemporary Australasian emergency management dates from the destruction of the Northern Territory city of Darwin by Cyclone Tracy in 1974. Besides responding to disaster scenarios, Australasian Disaster Victim Identification (DVI) personnel have been extremely proactive in developing operation manuals and training courses in Australia and New Zealand and around the region. Four key universities offer postgraduate education in forensic dentistry, providing a wealth of knowledge and experience. This chapter outlines recent Australasian incidents involving DVI dental specialists and provides suggestions for streamlining the identification of the deceased in mass fatality incidents.
- Description
- 2nd ed.
- Subject
- disasters; victim identification; forensic dentistry
- Identifier
- http://hdl.handle.net/1959.13/1052525
- Identifier
- uon:15441
- Identifier
- ISBN:9780123820006
- Language
- eng
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