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A mass fatality incident is an
emergency management Emergency management (also Disaster management) is a science and a system charged with creating the framework within which communities reduce vulnerability to hazards and cope with disasters. Emergency management, despite its name, does not actu ...
term used to identify an incident involving more dead bodies and/or body parts than can be located, identified, and processed for final disposition by available response resources. Although it is a somewhat relative term in that there is no widely accepted number of fatalities that define a mass fatality incident, it is generally recognized that if the number of fatalities exceeds the local city or county's resource capabilities causing them to request assistance, or mutual aid, from neighboring jurisdictions, the term applies. Mass fatality incidents may or may not be a result of a
mass casualty incident A mass casualty incident (often shortened to MCI) describes an incident in which emergency medical services resources, such as personnel and equipment, are overwhelmed by the number and severity of Casualty (person), casualties. For example, an ...
, which is considered a different type of incident and usually focuses more on managing the surviving victims of an incident. Mass fatality and mass casualty incidents may, and often do, occur simultaneously. Mass fatality incidents, differ from mass casualty incidents in that most, if not all, of the victims of the incident are deceased. A catastrophic plane crash with no survivors is an example of a mass fatality incident. Part of the distinction is because different kinds of resources are needed to manage each. Living victims are attended to by medical personnel such as Emergency Medical Services, deceased victims are attended to by medical examiners or coroners. Mass fatality incidents may be either caused by humans, such as hazardous materials releases, transportation accidents, military or terrorist attacks, or they may be the result of natural disasters such as earthquakes, floods, or severe weather.


Examples

Some significant mass fatality incidents are: *The
2004 Indian Ocean tsunami On 26 December 2004, at 07:58:53 local time (UTC+07:00, UTC+7), a major earthquake with a magnitude of 9.2–9.3 struck with an epicenter, epicentre off the west coast of Aceh in northern Sumatra, Indonesia. The Submarine earthquake, undersea ...
*The
atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki On 6 and 9 August 1945, the United States detonated two atomic bombs over the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, respectively, during World War II. The aerial bombings killed between 150,000 and 246,000 people, most of whom were civili ...
*
Hurricane Katrina Hurricane Katrina was a powerful, devastating and historic tropical cyclone that caused 1,392 fatalities and damages estimated at $125 billion in late August 2005, particularly in the city of New Orleans and its surrounding area. ...
*The
September 11 attacks The September 11 attacks, also known as 9/11, were four coordinated Islamist terrorist suicide attacks by al-Qaeda against the United States in 2001. Nineteen terrorists hijacked four commercial airliners, crashing the first two into ...
*The
Oklahoma City bombing The Oklahoma City bombing was a domestic terrorist truck bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, United States, on April 19, 1995. The bombing remains the deadliest act of domestic terrorism in U.S. history. Perpetr ...
*The
Bhopal Disaster On 3 December 1984, over 500,000 people in the vicinity of the Union Carbide India Limited pesticide plant in Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh, India were exposed to the highly toxic gas methyl isocyanate, in what is considered the world's worst ind ...
*The
Spanish flu The 1918–1920 flu pandemic, also known as the Great Influenza epidemic or by the common misnomer Spanish flu, was an exceptionally deadly global influenza pandemic caused by the H1N1 subtype of the influenza A virus. The earliest docum ...
pandemic *The 2020 Beirut explosions *The
COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic (also known as the coronavirus pandemic and COVID pandemic), caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), began with an disease outbreak, outbreak of COVID-19 in Wuhan, China, in December ...
One of the naturally occurring incidents with great potential to cause a mass fatality incident is pandemic influenza (flu). The Spanish flu pandemic of 1918 killed millions and overwhelmed response resources on a global level. A modern pandemic could have similarly overwhelming impacts. Catastrophic incidents that result in mass fatalities usually also result in mass injuries and/or illnesses. While it is more important to dedicate resources to care for the living, many people have public health concerns about the dead. This is one important reason why jurisdictions usually include mass fatality planning as part of their overall emergency preparedness efforts.


Response functions

The primary response functions in a mass fatality incident are: # ''Human remains recovery'' - the search & rescue efforts to locate bodies and body parts, marking and documenting the location of found remains, and eventually transporting the remains to either decontamination or the site morgue for examination as appropriate. # ''Decontamination'' (depending on event) - the "cleaning" of either chemically or biologically contaminated remains to make them safe for further handling and examination. # ''Examination'' # ''Identification & death certification'' - see disaster victim identification # ''Processing for final disposition'' After some mass fatality incidents, authorities have conducted hasty mass burials, and research has shown this is a generally unsatisfactory response. Mass burials are usually not required for public health reasons, they increase distress among survivors and interfere with long-term community recovery. In all cultures there are customs and rituals for dealing with the dead. Universally survivors want to know what happened to their loved ones, and that their loved ones' remains were treated with respect. These are important reasons to plan for mass fatality management.


Management resources

The
Disaster Mortuary Operational Response Team A Disaster Mortuary Operational Response Team or DMORT is a team of experts in the fields of disaster victim identification and mortuary services. DMORTs are activated in response to large scale disasters in the United States to assist in the iden ...
(DMORT) is part of the National Disaster Medical System and provides support to the National Transportation Safety Board and other mass fatality requirements.


See also

*
Emergency management Emergency management (also Disaster management) is a science and a system charged with creating the framework within which communities reduce vulnerability to hazards and cope with disasters. Emergency management, despite its name, does not actu ...


References

{{Reflist * Morgan OW, Sribanditmongkol P, Perera C, Sulasmi Y, Van Alphen D, et al. (2006) Mass Fatality Management following the South Asian Tsunami Disaster: Case Studies in Thailand, Indonesia, and Sri Lanka. PLoS Med 3(6): e195. doi:10.1371/journal.pmed.0030195 * ''Capstone Document: Mass Fatality Management for Incidents Involving Weapons of Mass Destruction'', US Army Research Development & Engineering Command and Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, Office for Domestic Preparedness, August 2005.
Fatality Plan''
National Association of Medical Examiners, 2005, updated 2010. * Stewart, J. (2004)
Mortuary Affairs
Defense Technical Information Center
Disaster Mortuary Operational Response Team website
* Jensen, R. A. (1999). Mass Fatality and Casualty Incidents: A Field Guide. United States: CRC Press. *Mass Fatality Incidents: A Guide for Human Forensic Identification. (2005). United States: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, National Institute of Justice. Incident management