Nicholas Comninellis

My Posts

50,000 Deaths in Turkey-Syria Earthquake – Immediate and Long-Term Response

 

The earth would occasionally rumble under my feet as a child living with my grandmother in Greece. We ran outside of her brick home; fearful it would collapse and kill us. One month ago, just 400 miles away in Turkey and Syria, earthquakes did indeed collapse thousands of homes, instantly killing 50,000 people – the same number of US soldiers who perished in the Vietnam War. The extent of this tragedy is almost unimaginable, and 1 million people are now homeless.

 

How shall we – people who enjoy relative affluence – respond to this catastrophe? In the coming weeks and months, survivors will be afflicted with hunger, cold exposure, unsafe drinking water, contagious diseases, and marked depression and anxiety. In the short term. your immediate donation of time or treasure to a reputable relief organization is especially strategic. INMED highly recommends Heart-to-Heart International (HHI), headquartered in greater Kansas City. At this moment, HHI is distributing trauma emergency surgery kits, deploying stand-alone portable medical trauma clinics, and sending the most-needed medicines and supplies, including analgesic medications, bandages, and crutches. You can also meet HHI staff in-person at the Humanitarian Health Conference on June 9-10.


 

In the long-term, how can we support sustainable infrastructures that will both prevent and more effectively respond to upcoming cataclysmic disasters? This broad question requires answers from multiple disciplines, including construction, governance, law-enforcement, and public safety. Within the discipline of healthcare education, professionals must be better equipped with critical disaster response and prevention skills – INMED’s particular forte. Each major INMED education program includes Disaster Management coaching.

 

Next time the ground rumbles, waters rise, tempest blows, or fires encroach may we all be well equipped for immediate and long-term response.

 

Scroll to Top