A Medical Disaster Response to Reduce Immediate Mortality after an Earthquake

During the past 20 years, natural disasters have claimed more than 3 million lives worldwide, affected at least 800 million people, and resulted in property damage exceeding $50 billion.1 The recent earthquake of magnitude 7.2 in Kobe, Japan, left more than 5000 people dead. In the United States, the great earthquake along the New Madrid fault of the Mississippi Valley in 1812 is said to have rung church bells in Boston and caused the Mississippi River to flow backward for three days.2,3 If a magnitude 8.3 earthquake were to take place along the San Andreas fault, it is estimated . . .