Respiratory Injuries in Earthquakes in Latin America in the 1970's — A Personal Experience in Peru, 1970; Nicaragua, 1972–73; and Guatemala, 1976.

Extract

Of the more than one million earthquakes which occur each year on our planet, very few involve areas of major population concentration. During the last decade, however, a significantly large number of earthquakes involved populations in cities or areas of large population density. The injuries, therefore, are multiplied by the collapse of large buildings or of walls of houses of poor design and construction of adobe brick. Crashing upon people asleep, they entrap, entomb or mutilate defenseless and often aged, ill, and diseased and helpless pediatric victims. The three earthquakes we witnessed recently have resulted in 70,000 deaths in Peru;, 12,000 in Managua, Nicaragua;, and 22,000 in Guatemala City and large suburban cities.

Most of the injuries are orthopedic fractures. Fatalities often occur from compression and permanent restriction of respiratory movement. These megaton disruptions of the environment cause the following types of respiratory challenge: (l) The unbelievably large and dense dust clouds from falling buildings, created by pulverization of the walls of mud, straw, and limestone, create suffocating chemical damage of some degree to the nasal mucosa, the bronchial tree and the respiratory bronchioles, immediately initiating endothelial edema, airway obstruction and collapse, and irritational bronchitis.