Earthquake Engineering Research Institute
Learning From Earthquakes

Push for Mobile Hospitals in Italy

February 23, 2018

Virtual Earthquake Reconnaissance Team (VERT) Summary by Erica Fischer.

The Amatrice Earthquake highlighted the need for mobile hospitals after an earthquake. The Amatrice Earthquake severely damaged the local hospital causing emergency vehicles to reroute to neighboring towns. Figure 1 shows the state of the hosptial after the earthquake.

 

Photo of Amatrice Hospital after the earthquake (photo crowd sourced from Instagram)

Figure 1. Amatrice Hospital after the earthquake (photo crowd sourced from Instagram).

 

Italy has been using the BLUE-MED mobile hospital units donated to Italy by BLUE-MED. These were able to be deployed within 48 hours of the disaster.