Citation

Karma S, Koufakos E, Statheropoulos M, Thomas CLP. Int. J. Emerg. Manage. 2022; 17(3/4): e274.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2022, Inderscience Publishers)

DOI

10.1504/IJEM.2022.125165

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

Emergency evacuation of critical infrastructures, e.g., airports and high density crowd buildings, like shopping centres or entertainment venues, is considered a critical issue in terms of evacuees' safety; bottlenecks may lead to crowd jamming, causing evacuation delays and possibly putting in danger the evacuees. Vulnerable people, such as people with disabilities are more likely to be injured or killed in an emergency, triggered by a natural or man-made disaster; they are rarely consulted on provisions for their safety and most of them are not prepared for emergencies. This case-study involves the evacuation of people with disabilities at an airport terminal due to a chemical exposure event, under a broader emergency evacuation exercise, targeting at: a) proposing a 'Critical Indicators list' for the inclusion of people with disabilities in evacuation exercises of public buildings; b) providing the lessons learned; and c) reflecting on suggestions regarding preparedness, evacuation and triage in such events.

Keywords: vulnerable people; disability; mobility impairment; chemical exposure; disaster; emergency; evacuation; evacuation plan; accessibility; emergency management.

Language: en