The South Asian Earthquake Six Months Later — An Ongoing Crisis

Abstract

International urban search-and-rescue teams arrived within days, but their heroic efforts probably saved relatively few lives: such interventions are generally responsible for only a small part of the public health effect of relief efforts after major disasters, since most survivors are rescued by community members in the first hours or days.1 Other international teams provided invaluable helicopter airlift to retrieve the injured and deliver aid to remote villages.