Bhoja Air crash: Lessons from the rescue operation

Throngs of onlookers, poor coordination disrupted rescue and search operation.


Umer Nangiana April 22, 2012

ISLAMABAD:


The emergency response following the B-213’s crash in Hussainabad lacked coordination. Still, all the bodies were shifted to hospitals and most of them were handed over to families within 24 hours.


Even though hospitals in Rawalpindi and Islamabad were put on high alert and were prepared to deal with the emergency, it wasn’t until three hours after the crash that the first ambulance from the crash site arrived at the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences.

“We received calls from witnesses in the village and rushed to the site. It took us some time to locate the area,” said a Rescue 1122 official in Rawalpindi. He added they acted on their own and nobody from the Islamabad administration contacted them for coordination.

Islamabad Deputy Commissioner Amir Ali Ahmed, however, told The Express Tribune that the emergency response was comparatively better than at the time of the Airblue crash in 2010.

He added the Rawalpindi city administration was also contacted immediately and emergency service were activated within minutes of the distress call — a claim not entirely without substance. The crash site saw dozens of ambulances and firefighters from every service of the twin cities rushing to the scene, causing a terrible traffic jam on the dusty, single-lane access route. The unwanted ‘inquisitive’ people on bikes and cars compounded the mess.

A Rawalpindi rescue official said, “Our backup and reserve teams got stuck in the traffic just three kilometres from the site and could not reach us for hours.” Without backup, rescue workers at the site worked through the point of exhaustion, he added.

The traffic police, meanwhile, faltered in its attempt to keep the vehicles moving and traffic did not exhibit any discipline until the army, called in by the city administration, arrived.

Power outage, caused by the crash, was another hurdle in the rescue efforts. Search teams at the site had to work in the dark till around midnight, when electricity to the area was restored.

DC Ahmed blamed the throngs of unnecessary people at the crash site for the delayed emergency services. However the hospitals, he added, worked with “great efficiency”.

Access to the crash site was easier this time round, which helped with the search operation, rescue officials said. A CDA rescue department official said the shifting of bodies to the hospital went along smoothly after the route was cleared of unnecessary vehicles by the army and Islamabad police.

But people need to know how to behave in such situations, so that rescue operations are not jeopardised. “We need to educate people on [how to behave in emergencies],” DC Ahmed said, adding that media too need to a play a role in this.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 22nd, 2012. 

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