Disaster Victims Research Articles

Methods and value of storytelling for stakeholders in post-disaster tourism scenarios

PurposeThe tourism sector continues to be an engine for economic growth for communities (Jenkins, 1980), and in post-disaster scenarios, destination can be overwhelmed with challenges, particularly for the local community. However, it is essential to seek the most effective path of recovery for individuals and communities. Gaps in contemporary post-disaster literature remain, as the focus often centres on infrastructure and economic developments (Cox and Perry, 2011). This paper aims to address such gaps by offering new ideas around the value of recovery focusing more on the victims, their stories and the role of tourism.Design/methodology/approachAs a theoretical paper, the applied method is described as a convenient approach to data collection and analysis. The methodological reasoning is down to the selection and examination of sources used to establish new theoretical understandings. The study applies a pragmatic research approach to embrace the spectrum of views that are present within the constructivist and positivist. The pragmatic philosophical approach supports multi-disciplinary studies and ensures a more holistic consideration of social conditions is embraced.FindingsThis paper offers new knowledge and ideas for post-disaster recovery scenarios. It presents a model that incorporates a range of (traditional, digital and immersive) methods and platforms in which stories can be shared and presented. It argues that allowing victims to share stories in different formats could support rehabilitation while also providing stronger, powerful narratives for tourists, leading to more effective tourism experiences.Originality/valueDisasters leave individuals and communities in devastation and with potentially lifelong trauma. In rehabilitation of victims is a vital ingredient to the recovery of a destination and its social fabric. This research offers new ideas around the use of digital technologies to generate stories of value that not only support victims of disasters but also offer visitors the opportunity to gain a deeper understanding of challenges and difficulties of dark places, often seen as a key part of the visitor experience and motive to places of tragedy.

A cost-effective model for emergency supplies prepositioning and procurement pricing via option contracts

Sudden-onset disasters frequently trigger an unexpected surge in demand for essential emergency supplies. Although current approaches prioritize cost-effectiveness and on-time delivery, they often neglect the suffering of disaster victims caused by insufficient emergency supplies. Our research aims to bridge this gap by mitigating the suffering of affected individuals while avoiding excessive costs. Initially, we integrate an option contract (OC) into a single-authority and −supplier framework agreement (FA). The cumulative suffering experienced by the affected population during deprivation periods is quantified under the FA. The supplier aims to maximize profit, while the government seeks to maximize social efficiency, defined as the ratio of the averted suffering to logistics costs. Subsequently, an option-based model for prepositioning and pricing emergency supplies is proposed. The results indicate that more suffering is averted by an OC in comparison to a wholesale contract (WC). Moreover, the option-based model is more cost-effective when the price of emergency purchases falls within a Goldilocks range, thus providing an optimal strike price for executing emergency options that maximizes social efficiency. Finally, we extend the model and observe that varying demand distributions indeed influence humanitarian decision-makers’ optimal decision strategies and seemingly have little effect on the feasibility of incorporating OCs into the prepositioning and procurement of emergency supplies, and that the dual mode of physical and production capacity reserves reduces to the single physical reserve mode when the urgent production cost exceeds a certain threshold. Additionally, the duration required deliver emergency supplies to the beneficiaries is prolonged with the increase in urgent conversion time, which leads to a reduction in social efficiency. Our research proposes a people-oriented, option-based mechanism for prepositioning and procuring emergency supplies to improve social efficiency, with a focus on the alleviation of the affected individuals’ suffering. Various measures are presented for emergency practitioners concerning the prepositioning and pricing of emergency supplies, thereby fostering an enduring government-enterprise cooperative relationship.

Trajectories of quality of life among disaster victims: A national longitudinal study.

This study categorized quality-of-life trajectories among disaster victims in South Korea and identified the characteristics and predictors of each trajectory. Disaster victims experience tremendous physical and mental distress, which has a long-term impact on their quality of life. We conducted a cross-sectional study using data obtained from the fourth Long-term Survey on the Change of Life of Disaster Victims conducted from 2017 to 2019. The study included 257 participants who experienced a typhoon, earthquake, or fire and completed the three-year follow-up. Latent transition analysis was used to identify the potential class of quality-of-life trajectories among disaster victims. Independent t tests, χ2 tests, and logistic regression were used to identify the predictors of quality-of-life trajectories. Two latent quality-of-life classes were identified: persistent low-level and persistent high-level. Factors associated with the persistent high-level trajectory included higher education level, no injury/disease from the disaster, better subjective health status, higher social support, and lower social maladjustment. Quality of life early after a disaster is maintained throughout subsequent years; early and active support following disasters is essential to promote its rapid improvement. Targeted educational programs in disaster-prone areas are recommended to bolster resilience among individuals with lower education. Moreover, governmental and institutional efforts are needed to support victims who lack resources for disaster recovery. There is a need to establish community-based social support systems and enhance nurses' disaster response capabilities to support vulnerable groups, with such interventions tailored to reflect disaster-affected victims' unique characteristics and needs, along with ongoing research and evaluation for continuous improvements to nursing practice and disaster response.

A novel XG boost algorithm-based method for disaster victim detection in debris worlds

A novel XG boost algorithm-based method for disaster victim detection in debris worlds

재난피해자의 삶의 질에 영향을 미치는 심리사회적 요인

This study aimed to examine the level of quality of life (QOL) and the psychological and social factors influencing QOL among single-person and multi-person household disaster victims. This study utilized the third-year data from the Disaster Victims Panel Survey. The final analysis included data from 1,301 adults aged 20 and above, and multiple regression analyses were conducted separately for single-person and multi-person households. The main findings of this study are as follows: It was found that the level of QOL among multi-person household disaster victims was higher than that of single-person household disaster victims. Additionally, different psychological and social factors influencing QOL were observed between single-person and multi-person households. Among the psychosocial factors, resilience, depression, self-rated health status, and community resilience were identified as significant common predictors influencing the QOL of disaster victims in all household types. On the other hand, for single-person household disaster victims, only post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) emerged as a significant predictor of QOL. In the case of multi-person household disaster victims, social support and satisfaction with relief and distribution services emerged as new predictive factors influencing QOL. Based on these findings, policy and practical implications for improving the QOL of disaster victims according to household types are suggested.

Prososial Relawan Trauma Healing Korban Bencana Alam (Prosocial Trauma Volunteers Healing Natural Disaster Victims)

The geographical location of Indonesia's territory is traversed by the Pacific Circum which makes many active mountain ranges in Indonesia. Reporting from National Geographic, as many as 90 percent of earthquakes originate from the Pacific Circum which are caused by volcanic activity. The frequent occurrence of natural disasters causes many losses in addition to losses such as damage to buildings, deaths and victims who suffer minor to serious injuries are victims who experience emotional problems such as depression, anxiety, excessive fear and worry, even PTSD. The existence of trauma healing volunteers for victims of natural disasters as mentioned above is really needed to prevent the psychological problems experienced by victims of natural disasters from becoming worse. The volunteers needed by victims are volunteers who are not selfish or prioritize their own interests, volunteers who have an empathetic attitude towards victims and are aware of people who need help. Such volunteers by Santrock are volunteers who have a prosocial attitude. This research aims to look at the prosocial picture which includes: cooperation, sharing, helping, honesty and generosity of trauma healing volunteers. This research is a qualitative research type of phenomenological study. Online interview techniques by calling each informant were used to explore data for this research. The research informants were 3 active Indonesian volunteers to date who have been volunteers for at least 3 years. The results of the research describe the prosocial nature of natural disaster volunteers based on prosocial aspects, which include: 1) cooperation: the cooperation of volunteers is shown by the volunteers' willingness to balance personal interests with the interests of the volunteer organization and also that the informants can respect other people who have provided opinions. 2) Sharing: the form of sharing shown by volunteers is that volunteers like to share their joys and sorrows with other people. 3) Helping: the forms of helping behavior shown by volunteers are Informal Planned Helping and Emotional Helping. 4) Acting honestly: The form of honesty shown by volunteers is being honest in their words, namely saying what they are and not cheating. 5) Generous: the informant's form of generosity is that volunteers like to give charity by donating the proceeds from holding webinars and raising funds online via kitabisa.com for victims of natural disasters

Longitudinal Stability and Interrelationships among PTSD, Resilience, and Social Adaptation in Disaster Victims : A Multi-group Analysis by Gender

Longitudinal Stability and Interrelationships among PTSD, Resilience, and Social Adaptation in Disaster Victims : A Multi-group Analysis by Gender

Resilience of Natural Disaster Victims Based on Social Capital Community Recovery Strategy for Flash Floods in Ladang Rimba

Flooding is a natural phenomenon caused in areas where many rivers flow. This research intends to describe, analyze and reveal the flash flood disaster in Ladang Rimba in 2023. In its development, this method uses environmental history by utilizing sources obtained, both written and oral, which are related to the topic of discussion. The results of this research show that after the 2023 Ladang Rimba flash flood disaster, it was a sad story for all the people living in the flood area. Severe damage due to flash floods in Gampong Ladang Rimba in Central Trumon District still leaves mud sediment with a thickness of up to 120 cm. still covering residential areas, residents' houses and various infrastructure. The impacts of flash floods in Ladang Rimba include: experiencing levels of damage to infrastructure, including housing, roads, bridges and utilities, loss of livelihoods, business closures, and impacts on local industry, social and psychological impacts on individuals and communities, including trauma, problems mental health, and community cohesion, the level of community involvement in the recovery process and empowerment of local residents. For this reason, a comprehensive review is needed that involves collaboration between various stakeholders, including government agencies, non-government organizations, community representatives and academic researchers.

Psychosocial Support After Galodo in Jorong Panti, Nagari Rambatan, Tanah Datar

The Galodo disaster that struck Jorong Panti, Rambatan District, Tanah Datar, not only caused physical damage but also had a significant impact on the psychosocial condition of the community. The loss of homes, family members, and livelihoods created a need for assistance that goes beyond material support, emphasizing the importance of psychosocial care. This community service program aimed to restore the psychosocial condition of disaster victims, reduce post-disaster trauma, enhance community skills and knowledge, and support local economic recovery. The method used in this service was Participatory Action Research (PAR), allowing direct community involvement in the recovery process. Activities included psychological support for families and children, reviving Quranic learning programs (TPA) that had stopped, enhancing early childhood literacy through storytelling and drawing, and organizing political education to prepare for local elections, as well as entrepreneurship workshops to reignite the survivors' work spirit and improve their skills. The results of this program show that the psychosocial assistance provided successfully reduced trauma impacts, particularly on children, and increased community participation in social and religious activities. Additionally, the entrepreneurship and political education programs contributed positively to local economic recovery and improved the community’s political awareness. In the final week, the program concluded with religious competitions and cultural performances as a form of appreciation and an effort to strengthen social traditions and values. In conclusion, this community service program had a positive impact on the psychosocial and economic recovery of the Jorong Panti community following the Galodo disaster by actively involving the community in every phase of recovery

Epistemic Injustices in Disaster Theory and Management

The present paper argues that the standardised treatment of disaster research and practice perpetuates the production of systematic epistemic injustices against victims of disasters. On the one hand, disaster victims are often prevented from contributing with their opinions and knowledge to the processes of disaster mitigation and disaster conceptualisation. On the other hand, disaster victims tend to lack the hermeneutical resources to make sense of their experiences intelligibly, due to the existence of significant hermeneutical gaps in the hegemonic terminology on the matter. I argue that both forms of epistemic injustice, the testimonial and the hermeneutical, are sustained by an epistemic privilege between the Global North and the Global South in matters of disasters. The second group comprises what I categorise generally as ‘disaster victims’. I identify two forms of structural prejudice that operate against disaster victims: one is the ‘non-expert’ prejudice, and the other is the colonial prejudice. Finally, because of the intercultural nature of disaster environments, I discuss the field of ‘multicultural competencies’ as a useful form of unveiling and counteracting the epistemic injustices contained in both disaster theory and practice.

Evaluation of the resilience of nonbuilt areas to the postearthquake crisis: application to the city of Boudouaou (Northern Algeria)

PurposeTo strengthen the resilience of Algerian cities subject to major hazards, this study aims to propose an evaluation of the capacity of the road network and open space (unbuilt spaces of the city) to respond to the postearthquake crisis for the evacuation and rescue of victims after a destructive earthquake.Design/methodology/approachThe presented method was practiced by the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) and the Algerian Center for Applied Research in Earthquake Engineering (CGS) for the seismic microzoning study of the city of Algiers. The criterion, “Emergency evacuation and rescue facility” was applied to the city of Boudouaou as a tool for the evaluation of the road network and open space, and the analysis used Geographic Information System (GIS) data based on experimental indices conducted in Japan.FindingsThe assessment presents vulnerability maps showing the location of urban areas of high vulnerability to accessibility for evacuation and rescue of disaster victims at the time of the earthquake. The paper offers managers the possibility of decreasing the vulnerability rate of the city by preventive remedies, such as providing refuge areas for disaster victims and widening streets to facilitate the passage of rescue workers in vulnerable areas before the arrival of the earthquake.Originality/valueTo the best of the authors’ knowledge, being the first to present an evaluation of the road network and open space in the face of seismic risk in the region studied, the article demonstrates the importance of urban resilience in reducing human and material losses during a destructive earthquake.

Identification of Distorted Fingerprints Using Wavelet Method and Convolutional Neural Network (CNN)

Biometrics offers a valuable tool for disaster victim identification, particularly through fingerprints. However, distorted or damaged fingerprints pose a significant challenge for recognition. This study explores the potential of Wavelet and Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) techniques to enhance the accuracy of distorted fingerprint recognition. Wavelet transform addresses the non-stationary nature of images and reduces detected noise. Convolutional Autoencoder, a CNN component, generates simplified feature representations from input images and attempts to reconstruct them. Utilizing 500 fingerprint samples, the testing results demonstrate accuracy variations ranging from 11% to 59.2%. Image reconstruction achieved 7.16% to 12.47% accuracy, while fingerprint matching attained accuracies between 92.71% and 93.96%. Averaging across all damage levels, the overall accuracy reached 37.65%, with average fingerprint reconstruction at 9.31% and average matching accuracy at 93.03%. The successful reconstruction and matching of distorted fingerprints within a certain range of damage using Wavelet and Convolutional Neural Network highlights the promising potential of these techniques for improved fingerprint identification in forensic and security contexts.

Feasibility of anomalous event detection based on Mobile Spatial Statistics: A study of six cases in Japan

One of the primary goals of disaster risk management is to minimize the loss of life in the event of a disaster. To reduce the number of victims in disasters is important to know the amount of exposed population to a hazard. Similarly, population distribution in real-time is required to estimate post-disaster needs and resources for disaster relief. In this study, we explore the use of Mobile Spatial Statistics (MSS) as the basis to acquire offline and online population data and detect anomalies that may relate to a disaster. For instance, mobile spatial data could identify sudden changes in the number of people indicating an anomalous event or change in population dynamics. Here we use the Matrix Profile (MP) method in time-series analysis to test the feasibility of detecting anomalies in the MSS data. We selected mass gatherings and disaster events with rapid and slow onset and small and large scales. We discuss the applicability of this method for real-time anomaly detection of spatial population distribution within the context of disaster risk management. Our results show that the applicability of the MP method in anomaly detection is sensitive to the size of the areas used during monitoring and analysis, the subsequence length and the threshold applied.

Bone mineral density and geometric morphometrics: Indicators of growth in the immature pars basilaris

The pars basilaris forms a central component of the immature basicranium and owing to its resilience to post-mortem and taphonomic changes, holds significance across evolutionary, clinical, and forensic contexts. While size and shape parameters of the pars basilaris have been investigated, little is known about the influence of the underlying bone mineral density on the morphometry of this bone during growth. This study aimed to investigate the development and growth of the pars basilaris with specific reference to changes in bone density patterning and development of osteological features, during the prenatal and early postnatal periods of life. A total of 109 pars basilari were sourced from the Johannesburg Forensic Paediatric Collection, University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa. The study sample was subdivided into early prenatal (<30 gestational weeks), prenatal (30–40 gestational weeks) and postnatal (birth to 7.5 months) groups and micro-CT scanned to assess bone mineral density patterns across seven regions of interest. Size and shape changes were analysed using 11 digitized landmarks and geometric morphometrics. When comparing across age groups, the assessed dimensions increased with growth manifesting as a deepening at the anterior border of the foramen magnum, development of the lateral angles and widening of the bone at the lateral projections and spheno-occipital synchondrosis. However, no significant changes in the distribution of bone mineral density were observed. An appreciation of morphological changes and bone quality at specific growth sites in the pars basilaris is essential when analyzing remains of unknown provenance for the purposes of identification in disaster victim settings.

A review of the contributions of forensic archaeology and anthropology to the process of disaster victim identification.

Forensic archaeology and anthropology have developed significantly over past decades and now provide considerable assistance to the investigation process of disaster victim recovery and identification. In what are often chaotic death and crime scenes, the formal process of utilizing archaeological methods can bring control, order, and ensure systematic search. Procedures assist in defining scene extent, locating victims and evidence, rule out areas for consideration, and provide standardized recording and quality assurance through dedicated use of standardized forms (pro formas). Combined archaeological and anthropological search methods maximize opportunities to recovery the missing through identifying remains, mapping distributions, and providing accounting of victims at the scene. Anthropological assistance in examinations contributes to individual assessment, resolving commingling and fragmentation issues, and utilizing DNA sampling methods and matching data to reassociate and account for the missing. Utilization of archaeology, anthropology, and DNA matching data provides scope to review crime scene recovery and determine requirements and potential for further survey and retrieval. Adopting the most suitable methods for a particular context can maximize recovery, efficiency, and resource use. Case studies demonstrate the utility of archaeological methods in a range of scenarios. They exemplify the success of multidisciplinary analysis in providing evidence of the sequence of events, the timing of events, the impact of taphonomic processes, the location and accounting of victims, and the demonstration of systematic scene search. The considerations provided in this article, utilizing archaeology and anthropology processes, may assist investigators in planning and implementing responses to mass fatalities.

Disasters and Religious Resilience in Indonesia: A Review

Various disasters that occur in Indonesia are caused by several factors that can trigger casualties, environmental damage, property losses, and even adverse psychological impacts. The presence of such disasters causes pressure on disaster victims both from external and internal factors that can raise doubts or difficult situations that can threaten one's religious practice. This paper aims to show the role of religious communities towards disaster victims in Indonesia in order to increase the religious resilience of people affected by disasters. From the results of the research that has been done, it can be concluded that disaster victims in Indonesia will be able to go through the difficulties and pressures caused by disasters if they stick to religious practices and teachings socialized by religious communities. Religion teaches many important things concerning social benefit. Individuals and communities who feel pressure and sadness when faced with trials must hold fast to religious values in order to survive and find a way out of the complexity of the problem at hand.

Transformer fusion-based scale-aware attention network for multispectral victim detection

The aftermath of a natural disaster leaves victims trapped in rubble which is challenging to detect by smart drones due to the victims in low visibility under the adverse disaster environments and victims in various sizes. To overcome the above challenges, a transformer fusion-based scale-aware attention network (TFSANet) is proposed to overcome adverse environmental impacts in disaster areas by robustly integrating the latent interactions between RGB and thermal images and to address the problem of various-sized victim detection. Firstly, a transformer fusion model is developed to incorporate a two-stream backbone network to effectively fuse the complementary characteristics between RGB and thermal images. This aims to solve the problem that the victims cannot be seen clearly due to the adverse disaster area, such as smog and heavy rain. In addition, a scale-aware attention mechanism is designed to be embedded into the head network to adaptively adjust the size of receptive fields aiming to capture victims with different scales. Extensive experiments on two challenging datasets indicate that our TFSANet achieves superior results. The proposed method achieves 86.56% average precision (AP) on the National Institute of Informatics—Chiba University (NII-CU) multispectral aerial person detection dataset, outperforming the state-of-the-art approach by 4.38%. On the drone-captured RGBT person detection (RGBTDronePerson) dataset, the proposed method significantly improves the AP of the state-of-the-art approach by 4.33%.

Facial recognition for disaster victim identification

Mass disaster events can result in high levels of casualties that need to be identified. Whilst disaster victim identification (DVI) relies on primary identifiers of DNA, fingerprints, and dental, these require ante-mortem data that may not exist or be easily obtainable. Facial recognition technology may be able to assist. Automated facial recognition has advanced considerably and access to ante-mortem facial images are readily available. Facial recognition could therefore be used to expedite the DVI process by narrowing down leads before primary identifiers are made available. This research explores the feasibility of using automated facial recognition technology to support DVI. We evaluated the performance of a commercial-off-the-self facial recognition algorithm on post-mortem images (representing images taken after a mass disaster) against ante-mortem images (representing a database that may exist within agencies who hold face databases for identity documents (such as passports or driver's licenses). We explored facial recognition performance for different operational scenarios, with different levels of face image quality, and by cause of death. Our research is the largest facial recognition evaluation of post-mortem and ante-mortem images to date. We demonstrated that facial recognition technology would be valuable for DVI and that the performance varies by image quality and cause of death. We provide recommendations for future research.

Development and implementation of a rehabilitation triage algorithm for disasters in the subacute phase: an experience from the 2024 Noto peninsula earthquake

Early rehabilitation during disasters such as earthquakes is an important but often undervalued responsibility of medical teams. Both the development of simple tools for assessing the life functioning of evacuees and the standardization of intervention methods are urgent issues in disaster rehabilitation. The Japanese Rehabilitation Assistance Team (JRAT), an officially recognized organization consisting of 10 suborganisations, was established after gaining important experience with disaster rehabilitation in the aftermath of the Great East Japan Earthquake. We, the Hiroshima JRAT, were dispatched to the Monzen area of Wajima City to support disaster recovery after the 2024 Noto Peninsula Earthquake. Since disaster rehabilitation assistance was not well established in the Monzen area of Wajima City, the medical team consulted JRAT for guidance on triaging evacuees based on their life functioning. We developed a rehabilitation triage algorithm that classifies evacuees into four triage tags based on their ability to perform three simple movements: sitting up, standing up from the floor, and one-leg standing. In our triage algorithm, an inability to sit up is classified as a red tag (difficulty living in a shelter without assistance), an inability to stand up from the floor is classified as a yellow tag (individual intervention: introduction of beds and handrails), one-leg standing for &amp;lt; 2 s is classified as a green tag (group intervention: installation of toilets and bath rails and use of walkers to prevent falls), and standing on one leg for more than 2 s is classified as a white tag (independent in ADLs). We worked with medical teams to triage 922 evacuees in 27 evacuation centers, resulting in the extraction of four red and eight yellow evacuees in 1 day. Our rehabilitation triage system has the potential to be a simple assessment tool for classifying the life functioning of disaster victims and linking them to appropriate supports.

Disaster victim identification: Stable isotope analysis and the identification of unknown decedents.

Within the complex world of disaster victim identification, or DVI, forensic science practitioners use a variety of investigative techniques to work toward a common goal: identification of the decedents, bringing closure to the affected communities. Identification is a complex undertaking; the event (disaster) also can be extraordinarily complex, as it may be an acute event, or one that spans months or years. Compounding this time issue, remains may be heavily fragmented, dispersed, commingled, or otherwise disrupted by either the perpetrators or the disaster itself. To help solve these complexities, we explore the use of stable isotope analysis (SIA) in DVI events. SIA can be used with a variety of body tissues (hair, nail, bone, and teeth), and each represents different time depths in a decedent's life. Bone collagen and tooth enamel carbonate are useful to reconstruct an individual's diet and source water intakes, respectively, leading to likely population or geographic origin determinations. Additionally, the carbon and nitrogen isotopic signatures of bone collagen have calculated intraperson ranges. These facts allow investigators to determine likely origin of remains using isotopic data and can be used to link skeletal elements (to an individual), or perhaps more importantly, show that remains are not linked. Application of SIA can thus speed remains identification by eliminating individuals from short lists for identification, linking or decoupling remains, and reducing the need for some DNA testing. These strategies and hypothesis tests should commence early in the DVI process to achieve maximum effectiveness.