Post-seismic allocation of medical staff in the Longmen Shan fault area: case study of the Lushan Earthquake

In April 2013, a 7.0 magnitude earthquake struck along the Longmen Shan fault in the city of Ya'an, Sichuan province, China, causing 200 deaths, 11,470 injuries and 21 people to go missing. As no scientific disaster management studies have been done on medical staff dynamic behavior in the Longmen Shan fault area, this paper develops a system dynamics (SD) model to simulate the relief activities in the area after the 2008 Sichuan Earthquake shook Wenchuan County. Based on this SD model, the simulation showed that the results regarding the cumulative number of deaths and the final death toll fit the reality well for the 2008 Sichuan Earthquake in the Longmen Shan fault area. Findings from the simulation confirmed the best ratio of medical staff to rescue workers. After implementing the findings for the medical relief work at the 2013 Sichuan Lushan Earthquake, reasonable earthquake rescue policies were developed for the Longmen Shan fault area. The SD model demonstrated that it was possible to predict the optimum number of medical staff and that medical staff need to be trained to improve their treatment abilities. Furthermore, it is suggested that search and rescue workers should also assist in restoring road transport during any medical relief activities in the Longmen Shan fault area. These policies can be generalized to other earthquake relief activities in the Longmen Shan fault area as well as being a valuable reference for similar mountainous earthquake areas.

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