Military Hygiene and Hygiene in Emergency Situations - K.O. Pashka 2005

Fundamentals of organizing sanitary and hygienic measures in the ground forces during peacetime emergencies and wartime. Hygiene of field quartering of troops and the population.
Collection and burial of the dead and deceased

Sanitary clearance of areas from the bodies of those killed and deceased in emergency situations is a critical problem whose technical resolution requires substantial effort. It is carried out by specially designated teams operating under the supervision of medical service representatives. The duties of the medical service representative include:

- conducting a medical examination of all victims and deceased individuals without exception prior to their burial or cremation;

- ensuring that all members of the body retrieval and burial (cremation) team are provided with special work clothing, respirators (gas masks), gloves, and heavy-fabric aprons;

- selecting the site for the burial or cremation of the deceased;

- overseeing the incineration or burial of epidemiologically hazardous Materials at the disaster site.

In coordination with the team leader, the medical service representative determines the dimensions of the graves, supervises their excavation, and oversees the placement of bodies. The distance from the groundwater table to the bottom of the grave must be at least 0.5 m, and from the upper tier of bodies to the soil surface, at least 1.5 m. The clearance between the upper and lower tiers of bodies should be within 30-40 cm. A mound at least 0.5 m high must be built over the grave and covered with turf or stones. The mound should extend beyond the edges of the grave to prevent rainwater and snowmelt from seeping in. The medical worker organizes sanitary and disinfection measures during and after the burial, completes sanitary documentation regarding the work performed, marks the burial sites on a map, and provides a detailed report listing all sanitary measures undertaken.

The Functions of public health authorities include directing burial teams during natural disasters. Supervision of their work is necessary during every emergency, especially when There is a threat or occurrence of epidemics. The operations of these teams involve the following measures:

- recovering bodies from disaster areas (sanitary personnel provide necessary assistance to relevant services when required);

- establishing morgues, which should ideally comprise four sections: a receiving area; a viewing room for identifying the deceased; a storage facility for unidentified bodies; and a room for registering and storing the personal belongings of the deceased. In certain catastrophes, due to the unavailability of such facilities, morgues must be bypassed by placing bodies in refrigerated railcars or other suitable containers with a cool microclimate;

- official determination of death, which must be performed by a physician who issues the death certificate;

- identification of the deceased, utilizing all available means or, at the very least, gathering all accessible information about them;

- official registration of deaths by recording all details concerning each deceased person in a special register, while attaching an identification tag to the body;

- burying each disaster victim individually rather than in mass graves, with burial locations mapped and a registration number assigned to each grave;

- returning valuable personal items of the deceased to their immediate next of kin against a receipt. Personal belongings of individuals who died from infectious diseases are released to the family only after undergoing disinfection.

During the transportation and burial of bodies, precautionary measures must always be taken to prevent the spread of infections, particularly when death resulted from infectious diseases. In the event of epidemics, all stages of burial operations must be carried out under strict sanitary supervision. Members of the specialized burial team must wear specialized work clothing and are required to wash and change clothes at the end of the working day.

The mineralization of bodies is accelerated by establishing drainage and aeration for the grave. For drainage, trenches 30 cm wide and deep are dug along the edges of the grave, sloped toward a 1 m³ sump pit filled with brushwood or conifer branches. The fluid generated by the decomposition of the bodies is filtered and absorbed by the soil. For aeration, at least two ventilation pipes are installed at the bottom of the grave and extended 1-1.5 m above the grave mound.

Disinfectants are used exclusively when burying the bodies of individuals who died from infectious diseases. The bodies are wrapped in fabric soaked in a 5% lysol solution. Chlorine-containing agents may also be used, such as a 5% DTSGK solution or a 10% bleaching powder (chloride of lime) solution. A 2-3 cm thick layer of bleaching powder is placed at the bottom of the coffin.

Cremation is a more advanced method from a hygienic standpoint. In field conditions, the incineration process takes approximately 12 hours.

Cremation of bodies is generally mandatory in cases of death from plague. For this purpose, a pit 2 m long, 1 m wide, and 1.5 m deep is excavated. The end walls of the pit should be sloped to ensure better airflow. Fuel (firewood, peat, coal) in a layer approximately 1 m thick is laid at the bottom of the pit and poured over with 50-60 L of kerosene or solar oil. The bodies are placed on the pyre prepared in this manner, and another layer of fuel, also soaked in heavy fuel, is placed on top of them.

The retrieval and burial of bodies contaminated with toxic agents (TA) and radioactive substances (RS) is performed by a burial team equipped with gas masks and specialized protective suits. Dedicated transport is allocated for hauling such bodies, with the truck bed covered by a tarpaulin or tent canvas. Prior to loading, bodies are placed in heavy-duty paper or polyethylene bags, which prevents vehicle contamination and serves as an effective chemical and radiation safety measure for the burial team personnel. All operations are conducted under dosimetric control. Chemical detection equipment is deployed to identify the presence of toxic agents. Upon completion of the work, all burial team personnel undergo sanitary Processing, while the transport, shovels, specialized protective clothing, gas masks, and gloves are subjected to decontamination and degassing accordingly.