International Symposium on Mitigative Measures against Snow ...

<strong>International</strong> <strong>Symposium</strong> on Mitigative Measures against Snow Avalanches
Egilsstaðir, Iceland, March 11–14, 2008
was asked to provide rescuers from the Reykjavík area to go with a coast guard vessel to the
area. Transportation by air was impossible because of the weather. The coast guard vessel left
Reykjavík at 14:40 hours with rescuers and medical staff (Bernharðsdóttir, 2001). Soon after
that, the trawler Engey left Reykjavik with additional rescuers. At the same time, ships and
boats from various towns and municipalities closer to the area, were sent to Súðavík. In all
300 rescue team members were in action during the operation.
The first wave of rescuers coming to Súðavík arrived at 09:42 hours in the morning, more
than three hours after the avalanche struck. With them were trained avalanche dogs, command
and medical staff. A collection point for rescuers was set up in the local freezing plant and
rescuers were sent to search at likely locations; the dogs worked very well and marked likely
positions and the rescuers started to dig at these locations. All rescuers that went from the
collection point had to carry avalanche beacons for safety. More rescuers arrived from
Ísafjörður and towns around the area. The coast guard vessel arrived with rescuers from the
Reykjavík area at 14:20 hours on 17 th of January. At that time the local rescuers and
volunteers from the area had been working for 36 hours. Only two of those originally buried
by the avalanche were still missing. At 18:00 hours on 17 th of January all missing persons had
been found.
The work of the rescuers in the field became more and more difficult as time passed during
the operation. This is common in urban search and rescue. First you rescue those who are easy
to access and after that you dig deeper and deeper into the rubble. A number of huge rafters
had to be cut and the rescuers used chain shaws, crowbars and other manual tools. Snow
shovels were the main tool to gain access to the houses needed to be searched. The local
incident commander used an old town map to mark in the avalanche and likeliest spots
survivors could be found. Other indicators that the searchers used were blood trails that were
found in the snow (Avalanche 95).
When rescue operations finished, it took until Thursday 19 th of January to get every rescuer
back to his home because of adverse weather. In the following week, rescuers from all over
country were sent on rotation to help the local rescue teams to collect belongings of those
caught up in the avalanche. But the horror was not over. On 26 th of October the same year,
another avalanche struck.
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