Disaster Victim Management: Management of Disaster Victim Identification

The management of a disaster victim identification (DVI) situation consists of pre-disaster planning and antemortem (AM), and postmortem (PM) procedures, and begins by building up a DVI organization. This organization must be ready to deploy at short notice, at home working with the AM information and at the scene performing the PM procedures. One may distinguish between national versus international operations and in both situations the INTERPOL guidelines will facilitate the job, particularly when there are victims from several nations. The experiences from large and small, open and closed disasters are reviewed, with an emphasis on the management of the operation.