International USAR assistance under the COVID-19 pandemic
Flexible deployment of international USAR teams
During the COVID-19 pandemic, there are at least four possible scenarios for international USAR deployments:
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1.
Affected countries do not want to request or accept foreign teams, especially from the countries with many COVID-19 cases.
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2.
Assisting countries hesitate to send international USAR teams to the countries with many COVID-19 cases.
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3.
With transit ports potentially being disrupted or other border complications, foreign teams may be reluctant to send international USAR teams in case they are unable to return home.
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4.
Due to COVID-19 tests before departure or after arrival, USAR teams need more time to reach the affected areas.
Affected countries have the authority to determine if they receive USAR assistance and from which countries they receive assistance (Okita and Shaw 2020b). In the Beirut response, it seems that the government prioritised USAR teams from Europe and Middle-East countries and did not decline the offers of USAR assistance from these countries that had a higher incidence of COVID-19. For the assisting side as well, it seems that the needs outweighed the risk posed by COVID-19. As for the last point, the Lebanese government requested the USAR team members to bring a negative result of a PCR test and to take another test upon arrival at the Beirut airport. For example, the @fire team members had to wait for their test results for approximately 6 to 8 h.
The possibility of live rescue dramatically decreases in the first 3 or 4 days, and “8 h” is critical. Depending on the scale of damage and building type, the needs in the field can rapidly change as time passes. In Beirut, the Lebanese government declared the end of the SAR phase after 5 days from the explosions and shifted to the “recovery” phase. Thus, teams must be prepared to contribute to “Beyond the Rubble” operations. As in the case of @fire Germany, it might be necessary to adjust the team composition and equipment based on the changing needs in the field, while INSARAG sets the standard USAR team composition by using IEC.
Online USAR coordination mechanism
Due to the COVID-19, it becomes more challenging to have a face-to-face coordination meeting in the affected area. INSARAG has developed the ICMS so that the data collected in the field can be quickly analysed and teams can be allocated efficiently. Although further training of staff who can run the system is needed, the system worked well in the Beirut response with the support provided by the IMWG members remotely. The online coordination mechanism works only if all the deployed USAR teams input and receive information from the system. In this sense, it is worth noting that the awareness of INSARAG and its system is increasing year by year, and the Beirut response showed much improvement in the USAR coordination from the 2015 Nepal response (INSARAG 2020b).
Procedures for receiving international USAR teams
It can be said that the Beirut response reminded the governments in the disaster-prone countries to revisit their procedures for receiving international USAR teams amid the COVID-19 situation. For example, the Japanese government currently (as of August 2021) request incoming international passengers from many countries to quarantine themselves for 2 weeks after they receive a negative result from their COVID-19 tests at the arrival airports. If this also applies to international USAR team members, it would be better not to request international USAR team and to prefer other types of assistance such as cash contributions. The governments in disaster-prone countries should consider whether to apply a regular procedure to international USAR teams or apply a special procedure to them.
Strengthening first responders
As this paper indicates, some affected countries might not want to receive foreign USAR teams during the COVID-19 pandemic. Even if they receive assistance, it is predicted that international USAR teams will need more time to reach affected areas due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Thus, the role of first responders, including national and local light USAR teams, who are already in affected countries becomes more critical to save lives in the COVID-19 era.
Before the COVID-19 pandemic, it has been pointed out that international USAR teams have not saved many lives except in cases such as the 1997 Turkey earthquake and the 2010 Haiti earthquake, where more than 100 were rescued by international teams (Rom and Kelman 2020). In many earthquakes, most of the live rescues were conducted by the locals, such as relatives and neighbours (e.g. Bartolucci et al. 2019; Rom and Kelman 2020). One of the biggest reasons for this was the time to arrive in affected areas. It has been suggested that international USAR can also be used as a gesture of geo-political solidarity (Glassey 2013), despite the questionable effectiveness of such responses.
INSARAG was originally established to improve the coordination of international USAR teams in disaster rescue response, but the capacity building of national and local USAR teams has also been one of the focus areas. The 2010 INSARAG Hyogo Declaration encouraged all countries to enhance the capacity building of national USAR teams (INSARAG 2010). Based on this, INSARAG released the First Responder Training package at the 2015 ISG Meeting with support from the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) (ISG 2015). The package is available at the INSARAG website free of charge.
Though training organisations can freely use the training materials, there is no official INSARAG course certificate available to participants, and this has been seen as a deficiency in the approach. This recognition can be a strong motivation for capacity building. Hagelsteen and Becker (2019) point out that lack of motivation to change the current practices is one of the reasons behind the poor result of capacity building in disaster risk reduction (DRR). According to the guidance note of the package, in case organisations require support to deliver the course, they are suggested to contact the INSARAG’s regional group directly. However, anecdotally, despite the training package being aimed at community first responders, these volunteers in some countries struggle to find support to receive “official” training despite having country focal points. The training package refers to a “Training of Trainers” (ToT), but despite being available since 2015, anecdotal evidence suggests there has been a minimal roll-out of such courses.
The INSARAG Asia-Pacific regional group deployed USAR capacity assessment missions to Thailand in April 2015 and the Philippines in April 2016. The missions were requested by these countries as they were also interested in having IEC certification in the near future. Although both countries used the IEC checklist for the preparation for IEC and capacity building of the team for international deployment, it was not mentioned that they used the First Responder Training package for the capacity building in-country (INSARAG 2015; INSARAG 2016). It would appear the First Responder programme is not well supported within the INSARAG network; however, further research is required to substantiate this assumption.
There have been efforts by INSARAG to introduce a National Accreditation Process that allows for light teams and other capacities to be officially recognised which is encouraging. It should be noted that the INSARAG First Responder is intended for a wide range of community groups including NGOs and the emergency services, whereas the INSARAG Light Teams are specifically formed teams trained and equipped for USAR from light structures. With the involvement of the IFRC in developing the INSARAG First Responder Training package and being so active in disaster response, it is not clear why they are not part of the LTWG.
In New Zealand, recent USAR courses revealed that New Zealand Red Cross response volunteers were advised they did not need such training, despite the promotion of the INSARAG First Responder training by the IFRC (student “A”, personal communication, 15 August 2020). It would appear that the IFRC should take a stronger role in leading their own joint INSARAG/IFRC training package to its member organisations and consider becoming more active in the light rescue working group space given their focus and track record in building community-level resilience and a social licence that expects them to respond to disasters. Given the politics of heavy rescue teams often being government entities, it may be more effective to have IFRC through member societies, provide community-level ToT programmes and encourage uptake of the First Responder programme. This would likely make the training more accessible and community-focused and yield a significant increase in building local capacity.
As part of the building local capacity, Glassey and Thompson (2020) also suggest that the emergence of animal disaster response teams should be integrated into the INSARAG system by ensuring marking systems are inclusive of animal SAR (rescuing animals trapped or left behind following a disaster) and even light rescue teams that specialise in animal rescue being recognised. According to Glassey and Thompson (2020), the benefits of integrating animal rescue with human rescue is that by doing so, the additional animal rescue surge capacity acts as a force multiplier for human rescue, reduces search duplication, ensures coordinated response and minimises leaving trapped animals to cause false flags during search operations. This approach will create further community-level surge capacity if such groups are encouraged to integrate with the human rescue system and undertake the INSARAG First Responder training.
Okita and colleagues analysed the IEC processes for the Japan Disaster Relief (JDR) team, which was classified in IEC as heavy in 2010 and reclassified in 2015, and the National Search and Rescue Agency of the Republic of Indonesia (BASARNAS) team, which was classified as medium in 2019. The JDR team invited mentors from New Zealand and Australia and accepted their advice, while BASARNAS had mentors from Singapore. Both Japan and Indonesia are disaster-prone countries and are believed to already have robust USAR capability. However, they accepted the “change” brought by the international standards defined by INSARAG to be recognised internationally. As a result, it led to further strengthening of their USAR capability (e.g. the introduction of new USAR techniques). The analysis also indicated that having one IEC-classified team in the country led to strengthening national and local USAR teams in Japan and Indonesia (Okita and Shaw 2020a; Okita et al. 2018).
This study with its COVID-19 perspective supports the recommendations of Rom and Kelman (2020) and Bartolucci et al. (2019) for local capacities to be prioritised and strengthened if international USAR is to yield more cost- and lifesaving-effective responses to future disasters.
Limitations
The study reviewed the international USAR response to the Beirut explosions, which was the first international USAR teams deployment amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Each affected country will take different responses to the offers of international USAR assistance and arrival procedures for incoming USAR teams. Thus, the findings in this study might not always apply to other countries and emergencies.
The majority of references cited in this study are from the literature produced by the UN or its member states. These references are not necessarily subject to the same scrutiny as academic peer review and our findings may be affected accordingly. On this basis, though we can report on the impact of COVID-19 on international USAR response on this occasion, our study does not provide any evidence either way as to the effectiveness of light or any other rescue responses to the Beirut explosions.
Future research
In the COVID-19 era, the role of first responders in SAR activities will be more critical to saving lives. The study introduced some analyses where INSARAG’s classification system (IEC) got support probably because teams were motivated by being recognised by INSARAG (such as Thailand and the Philippines). Then, IEC also led to capacity building of national and local teams, or first responders, although IEC was originally developed for internationally-deployed teams (e.g. examples being the JDR team in Japan and the BASARNAS team in Indonesia). Further studies on capacity building of first responders, especially on how international USAR teams can contribute to the capacity building process, are needed.
Further research also is needed to address concerns raised by front line volunteers that despite having national focal points under the INSARAG system there can be little to no engagement, no passing on important information such as changes to marking systems, or the opportunity to be involved. The accountability of focal points needs further research to ascertain whether such anecdotes of alienation of accredited and non-accredited light rescue teams are valid. Alternatively, further research could be undertaken to ensure guidelines issued by INSARAG are being actively promoted and their implementation evaluated.
No research or reports could be found evaluating the effectiveness of the INSARAG First Responder programme, and this programme also requires further study.