Senior decision-makers do not have enough understanding of the issues surrounding disaster management, a Belgian police commissioner Joan De Winne, head of the Belgian disaster victim identification (DVI) team, told an Interpol experts' meeting on May 22nd.

In his presentation of ways likely to make senior managers and their political masters sit up and take note, Mr De Winne encouraged his colleagues to give effective, and graphic, briefings.

'Once decision-makers realise that poor disaster management can cause real problems at home, they are more willing to listen and take the necessary pre-planning measures,' he said. 'There are three questions always asked by the victim's family- 'Are you sure?', 'Did they suffer?'and 'Can we see the body?'.

In order to convince those who allocate resources, Mr De Winne went on to advocate the use of real life images of disaster scenes, mutilated body parts and touching personal items such as jewellery to illustrate the horrors faced by families who have to identify their deceased loved ones.

The conference, comprising nearly a hundred expert delegates sent from thirty countries, took place at the Interpol General Secretariat from May 21 to 23. It was the 15th meeting of the Interpol Standing Committee on Disaster Victim Identification which was originally set up in 1980 to create a multidisciplinary task force of police officers, forensic pathologists and forensic odontologists with specific expertise in techniques for identifying victims of major catastrophes.

Emergency services on the ground are likely to be called in to handle a disaster and these people, too, must be aware of the disaster management services that are available, Mr De Winne said. Each country should have a permanent national DVI team which has the expertise to use the internationally recognised standard methods, organisation and data recording procedures. As a move towards this goal, the Interpol DVI manual and ante- and post-mortem forms are freely available on the public website.

International co-operation is almost inevitable in the event of a major disaster. One of the first priorities is to establish a reliable victim list which in itself can often be a complex task. Setting up a casualty bureau and call centre serves the dual purpose of assisting the DVI teams to establish a list of missing persons, as well as enabling worried family members and friends to take constructive action. Lists are then compared to give a final, more reliable list of probable victims.