Methods Used in Urban Search and Rescue in Disasters and Evaluation of Current Approaches

Disaster is an event that results in serious physical and death of large number of people, because of earthquake, tsunami, flood, landslide, volcano eruption, hurricane, hose, airplane accidents, train accidents, nuclear power plant accidents, explosions and terrorist attacks. Urban search and rescue works are important for finding people and animals trapped under the collapsed structure after the collapse of buildings as a result of earthquakes, terrorist attacks and landslides. The initiation of urban search and rescue activities in the first hours of the disaster increases the rate of live removal of the stranded. The survival rate of the victims 50% decreases, after the first 24 hours. According to the data obtained from numerous cases especially related to earthquakes, it was stated that 50-95% survivors after the disaster were rescued by the local people within the first 24-48 hours. However, there is need for professional teams to reach the victims who are trapped under rubble and are difficult to access. Secondary collapses due to aftershocks and other causes in the collapsed structure (collapses during removal or fixation of debris, and collapses due to the search of relatives on the debris of the relatives, etc.), dangerous leakage of gas, and leakage of access routes to the casualty. These are threats to the safety of urban search and rescue teams. These threats prevent search and rescue personnel from being effective and efficient in urban search and rescue activities. In urban search and rescue activities, local people and professional teams, as well as actors such as dogs, robots, seismic and acoustic (listening) devices and imaging devices are also involved. Each of these actors can be used effectively and efficiently in different tasks and urban search and rescue activities, but it has the characteristics of completing each other. In this study, the positions of disaster volunteers, professional search and rescue personnel, search and rescue dogs, listening and video search devices and robots in search and rescue activities were investigated.