Managing Safety and Health Risks in Antarctica

Posted on June 23, 2011 by Jared Wade

You think your crises are difficult to manage? Try doing it on the most inhospitable land mass in the world. That’s what Martin Boyle of the Australian Antarctic Division has to do every day.

Nowhere is the weather more unforgivable. Nowhere is the margin of error between life and death slimmer. Nowhere else are hypothermia and workers that “get pissed, fall down a crevasse and die” two of the biggest employee risks, as Boyle explained during his presentation on the topic at the World Conference on Disaster Management earlier this week in Toronto.

Today, as agreed to under the Antarctic Treaty, the Aussies manage 42% of this rock and ice mass.

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I say manage because, technically, Antarctica doesn’t “belong” to anyone. Various countries (chiefly, Australia, the United States, Russia, Norway, Argentina, Chile, New Zealand, France and the UK) have divvied up land claims to maintain research operations and, probably even more so, express their sovereignty by sticking a flag in the ice.

This year marks the centennial of Australian exploration of Earth’s southernmost continent. And, really, the risks there haven’t changed much since Ernest Shackleton first put out the following ad for people to accompany him on his maiden voyage to Antarctica: “Men wanted for hazardous journey. Small wages, bitter cold, long months of complete darkness, constant danger, safe return doubtful.”

The main threat on the continent is people turning up missing. Through a series of international agreements, nations have together formed five search-and-rescue divisions. Informally, they had always pitched in to assist one another when times called for it, but it wasn’t until 2008 that all five sat down to formulate some unified procedures. “After that meeting we had a lot of progress, got a lot of training systems in place and [developed] a lot of coordination,” said Boyle. “It’s that sort of relationship building between these different search and rescue groups that has really helped us out…You just can’t operate in Antarctica on your own. Everyone has to work together.”

Banding together to find stranded scientists or other personnel is particularly helpful in the winter months when temperatures plummet and no aviation is possible across the whole continent. It’s simply too cold and dark to fly so the individual bases have to make due with the provisions on site until a resupply comes next summer. And this complicates everything.

“If something happens in the winter,” said Boyle, “they have get by with what they have.”

One grave risk, then, is losing supplies to fire. “Fire is one of the most dangerous hazards in Antarctica since it’s so dry that buildings can go up in minutes,” said Boyle. “Essentially, we just have to let them go. We can’t fight a fire in Antarctica so our focus is on prevention certainly. It’s quite difficult because the water freezes in the hoses.”

When something does go awry, they also have to face the fact that medical services generally will be rather rudimentary. Usually the base only has one doctor, a generalist who will not have access to the resources she would have even at a small hospital.

To illustrate this, Boyle showed us a photo of an emergency abdominal surgery taking place. The surgeon was a general practitioner and the rest of the “medical team” consisted of a plumber, a diesel mechanic and the base chef. “The chef is pretty good with knives and cutting things up,” said Boyle. (Fortunately, the team isn’t all on their own. They can always establish radio contact with specialists in Australia who can help walk the doctor through any emergency.

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This reality adds to the safety consciousness the Australians try hard to maintain. Everyone on the base goes through extensive training for the elements they will encounter both pre-trip and once get to Antarctica, where people stay anywhere from six months to five years at a time. Within their normal operations, they routinely run exercises for search and rescue, fire and what to do before any commercial plane lands.

According to Boyle, this is what keeps their program ahead of some of the other more free-wheeling bases on the continent. They have had 21 deaths over the last 50 years from a range of different causes, including aviation accidents and hypothermia, but this is a relatively low number.

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“We’re not the worst program,” said Boyle. “The Russian program has deaths every year. The U.S. program has deaths every year. We haven’t had a death in about 10 years. We’re very safety conscious.”

One safety procedure mandates that any time anyone leaves an Australian base he has to give provide detailed schedule and route of where they’re going and take a radio for emergency communication. This way, it doesn’t take long before the others will know if someone is lost and they have a map to follow when conducting a search. Still, unplanned disappearances do occur.

One time, for example, a group had gathered in a hut for a couple of drinks. One man went out to the bathroom tent. The others thought he was returning to his lodge tent afterward so they didn’t think anything of it when he didn’t return. But a raging blizzard hit and the man could not find his way back.

“In the morning, they wondered where he was and found him a couple hundred meters away from the hut, severely hypothermic,” said Boyle. “They went back to the station but unfortunately he died on the way.”

As any good emergency response team would, that Australian Antarctic Division learned from tragedy. And now they have gone a long time without any deaths, something Boyle credits to the organization continually striving to make sure everyone leaves the continent just as healthy as they were when they arrived.

“After that [death], we put a lot of procedures in place … pretty much tightened up our act,” said Boyle. “We haven’t had an incident like that since then. It’s all these horror stories that we tell to expeditioners that increases our safety.”

Massive Cyclone Yasi Makes Landfall in Australia

Posted on February 2, 2011 by Jared Wade

The east coast of Australia is currently being pummeled by what is reportedly the largest windstorm to hit since Europeans settled the continent. With peak winds of 186 mph and storm surge of some 23 feet, this cyclone, which at one point spanned 400 miles, has the potential to devastate a region already reeling from recent floods that killed more than 30 people, caused insured losses of at least $1.5 billion and “covered an area the size of France and Germany combined,” according to the UK paper The Telegraph.

The AP video below shows some of the damage the storm has caused. It is now down to category 3 storm and should continue to dissipate as it moves inland, but it will still be many hours until the full brunt of disaster will be known.

In this other video from the BBC, we hear one 83-year-old local say “I’ve never been in anything like this in my life.”

More encouraging is the evacuation warning given by Queensland Premier Anna Bligh.

“Do not bother to pack bags. Just grab each other and get to a place of safety. Remember that people are irreplaceable.”

Let’s keep hoping for the best.

(video via The Huffington Post)

Australian Insurers Brace for Worst

Posted on January 5, 2011 by Emily Holbrook

Close to 348,000 square miles across 20 towns are flooded and 200,000 residents affected after heavy rains drenched Queensland and neighboring states from December 25 to January 3.

The effects of the flooding are far-reaching. Reports indicate Queensland-based insurer SunCorp has told the Australian Stock Exchange it has received 1,800 claims so far. A JP Morgan analyst has said that losses to the insurance industry due to the flooding are estimated at $1 billion. The Insurance Council of Australia (ICA), however, has said that it is too early to provide a loss estimate.

The worst flooding in decades has affected an area the size of Germany and France, leaving towns virtual islands in a muddy inland sea, devastated crops, cut major rail and road links to coal ports, slashed exports and forced up world coal prices.

Coal production in Queensland has been severely disrupted. “The Queensland Resources Council said lost coal and gas production would run to hundreds of million of dollars.” Economists have projected a $6 billion loss from reduced export volumes.

Key crops such as cotton, sunflower, sugar and wheat have been gravely affected by the floods and, according to the Queensland Farmers Federation, few farmers have flood insurance. Crop losses alone could exceed $1 billion.

Below is a video of the “biblical” Australian floods that have claimed the lives of 10.

Needless to say, the property damage in Queensland and neighboring states will be a hard hit to the country’s insurers.

When Circus Animals Kill

Posted on October 27, 2009 by Emily Holbrook

It was recently reported that a Russian circus bear killed a circus manager, 25-year-old Dmitry Potapov, and critically injured another circus worker who tried to rescue the manager. Though we may not hear about every incident involving a circus animal who turns on its captors, there are plenty of eye-raising instances, such as the one below. Tyke, a 20-year-old African elephant went on a rampage during a performance in Hawaii in August of 1994, killing her trainer and severely injuring her groomer.

(Warning: the following footage contains graphic images)

The Humane Society of the United States keeps a detailed list of circus incidents involving animals, from 1978 to the present. To read this lengthy list is to realize how common these attacks are, and how using (and in most instances, abusing) animals in circus and zoo performances is arcane and unethical. BornFreeUSA.org, an animal protection initiative, lists 10 fast facts about animals in the circus:

Every major circus that uses animals has been cited for violating the minimal standards of care set forth in the United States Animal Welfare Act (AWA).
Animals in circuses spend about 11 months of the year traveling.
During travel, animals may be caged or chained for long distances and hours, forced to stand in their own waste, in extreme temperatures.
Standard circus industry training tools used on animals include bullhooks, whips, clubs, and electric prods.
Animals born in circus “conservation” breeding programs have never been released into the wild.
From 1994 to 2005, at least 31 elephants have died premature deaths in the circus. Other circus animals who have died in an untimely manner include horses and lions.
Captive elephant and captive feline attacks on humans in the U.S. have resulted in hundreds of injuries, many resulting in death.
In the wild, elephants live in large, sociable herds and walk up to 25 miles every day. Most other wild animals found in circus settings, including lions and tigers, are also constantly on the move in their native habitats. In the circus, animals spend most of their time in cages or chains.
Officials from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (which enforces the AWA) have repeatedly ignored obvious physical trauma to animals, eyewitness accounts of mistreatment, and sworn testimony from former circus employees who report abuse of elephants.
Circuses that feature only human performers are gaining in popularity and provide dazzling, humane, and truly family-friendly entertainment.

In fact, circuses that provide human-only performances and entertainment are not only becoming more popular, but in some towns, they are the only choice. Earlier this year, Michigan State University students pushed to ban the Royal Hanneford Circus, citing allegations of animal abuse. In Queensland, Australia, a city council ruled that circuses involving animal performances are banned as of June of this year. And in Bolivia, both wild and domestic animals have been banned from circus performances within the country. Is this a sign of the times? Have animal circuses become a relic of the past?

shutterstock_elephant

Animals in circuses spend about 11 months of the year traveling.

During travel, animals may be caged or chained for long distances and hours, forced to stand in their own waste, in extreme temperatures.

Standard circus industry training tools used on animals include bullhooks, whips, clubs, and electric prods.

Animals born in circus “conservation” breeding programs have never been released into the wild.

From 1994 to 2005, at least 31 elephants have died premature deaths in the circus. Other circus animals who have died in an untimely manner include horses and lions.

Captive elephant and captive feline attacks on humans in the U.S. have resulted in hundreds of injuries, many resulting in death.

In the wild, elephants live in large, sociable herds and walk up to 25 miles every day. Most other wild animals found in circus settings, including lions and tigers, are also constantly on the move in their native habitats. In the circus, animals spend most of their time in cages or chains.

Officials from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (which enforces the AWA) have repeatedly ignored obvious physical trauma to animals, eyewitness accounts of mistreatment, and sworn testimony from former circus employees who report abuse of elephants.

Circuses that feature only human performers are gaining in popularity and provide dazzling, humane, and truly family-friendly entertainmentEvery major circus that uses animals has been cited for violating the minimal standards of care set forth in the United States Animal Welfare Act (AWA)