Preparation Of Medical Assistance On The Early And Late Phase Of Tsunami.

PREPARATION OF M EDICAL ASSISTANCE ON THE EARLY AND LATE PHASE OF
TSUNAM I
Agung Budi Sut iono, Tri W ahyu M urni, M uhammad Zafrullah Arifin, Ahmad Faried

Hasan Sadikin Hospit al, Facult y of M edicine Universit as Padjadjaran, Bandung Indonesia

Abst ract
Tsunami is a series of ocean w aves produced by a submarine eart hquake, landslide,
or volcanic erupt ion. These w aves may reach enormous dimensions and may have sufficient
energy t o t ravel across t he ent ire ocean and t o dest roy human lives near t he beach up t o a
dist ance of some kilometers from t he shoreline. Severe damage can be caused by large
t sunamis t o boath and other fishing equipment , t o houses, t o t ourist resort s, t o schools, t o
w at er and sanit at ion, andto infrast ruct ures. In addit ion t hey can cause subst ant ial damage
t o healt h services, w hich becomes an essent ial issue since t hese services are immediat ely
needeed for a quick medial response. If t he medical response is lat e, t hen is leads t o
prologing t he provision of medical assist ence especially t o persons severely injured as w ell as
t o spreading of infect ionus diseases [1]. Indeed, suddenly aft er t sunami st rikes t he land,
many people suffer t raumat ic injuries, t hat are caused by t he impact of sharp or blunt
object. In t he phase, somet imes t here can be a furt her t rouble when t reat ing t raumat ic
pat ient s, because medical equipment s might be broken as a consequence of t he t sunami.
Tsunami produce mud, causing contaminat ion of w at er, w hich in t urn result s int o sanit at ion

and hygiene problems t hat may cause infect ious diseases t hat may be complicat ed to t reat .
There are condit ions that can be more difficult compared to ot her t ypes of disast ers. For
example, t he logist ical problems of dist ribut ing goods could be very difficult due t o bad
w eat her, problemat ic access and limit ed t ransport at ion. Air, sea and land t ransportat ions
need much more effort for dist ribut ion of medical services. Because of t he t sunami damage,
aircraft could not land, ships or boat s could only anchor at 500 m – 1 km far from the new
coast line, made t he t sunami, and t rooper cars, t rucks, and ot her land t ransport at ion vericles
could find it impossible t o reach t he disast er area. Ussualy, t here is only w ay to dist ribut e t he
medial supplies in t eh early phase of t sunamis, i.e. by helicopt er. Based on t his sit uat ion, t he
medical assist ance can be divided int o t w o phases, t hat is early and t he lat e phase of a
t sunami at t ack.