Paper: GS – III, Subject: Disaster Management, Topic: Disaster Management, Issue: Disaster Victim Identification (DVI) by the NDMA.
Context:
India’s National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) has released the country’s first Disaster Victim Identification (DVI) guidelines to standardize processes for identifying victims in mass casualty events, emphasizing forensic methods like dental records due to their resilience.
Key Takeaways:
Background Context:
- NDMA, these guidelines address long-standing issues where disaster victims in India often remain unidentified, complicating dignified handovers to families.
- Inspired by events like the 2025 Air India Flight 171 crash in Ahmedabad where charred, commingled remains made traditional methods like fingerprinting ineffective the SOPs integrate global standards from Interpol’s 2023 DVI framework.
- They highlight forensic odontology (teeth analysis) as a key tool, given teeth survive fire, decomposition, and trauma better than other identifiers.
Four-Stage Process:
The guidelines outline a unified, Interpol-aligned four-phase DVI protocol with clear stakeholder roles (police, health officials, responders) under a dedicated incident commander:
- Recovery: Systematic retrieval, documentation, tagging, and preservation of remains from disaster sites.
- Post-Mortem Data: Medico-legal exams collecting fingerprints, DNA, dental records, and physical markers.
- Ante-Mortem Data: Gathering family-provided records (medical, dental, DNA, personal details) for comparison.
- Reconciliation: Scientific matching, analysis, confirmation, and family handover to prevent misidentification.
Key Challenges Addressed:
India faces systemic gaps that the guidelines target:
- No centralized DVI coordination, leading to agency silos.
- Scarce ante-mortem data, especially dental records, and overburdened forensic labs handling legal cases.
- Shortage of trained experts (odontologists, anthropologists) and inconsistent chain-of-custody practices.
- Disaster-specific issues: fragmentation in earthquakes/floods, rapid decay in heat, hazardous terrain, polytrauma, and climate change as a “risk multiplier”.
Innovations include a proposed National Dental Data Registry for quick ante-mortem/post-mortem dental matching (e.g., selfies showing front teeth) and forensic archaeology, drawn from WWII exhumations in Northeast India.
Forensic Methods Highlighted:
- Primary identifiers per Interpol: fingerprints, odontology, DNA. NDMA adds virtual autopsy and archaeology for complex cases like debris fields or historical recoveries.
- Dental records proved vital in the Ahmedabad crash for 260 victims.
Implementation Outlook:
- NDMA plans nationwide teams, state-level training, and mortuary logistics to build capacity.
- This marks a shift toward proactive, dignity-focused disaster response, reducing errors in victim returns and aiding closure for families.
Source: (The Indian Express)
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