Abstract

Natural disasters cause various physical, social, environmental, and economic damages all around the

world. Many lives and property losses are experienced every year due to natural disasters.

Earthquakes are one of the main natural disasters that are not easy to predict and cause catastrophic

results. On February 6, 2023, two earthquakes occurred with magnitudes of 7.8 and 7.5 that heavily

affected the provinces of Adyaman, Hatay, Kahramanmaraş, Kilis, Osmaniye, Gaziantep, Malatya,

Şanlurfa, Diyarbakır, Elazığ, and Adana in Southern and Southeastern Turkey. These earthquakes

caused catastrophic results. Based on formal reports 50,399 people lost their lives, 107,204 got

injured, and many buildings were destroyed. One of the main reasons behind these losses can be

related to insufficiency of effective disaster management plans.

Right after a disaster, it is vital to provide emergency aid and relief items within the first 72 hours. The

placement of emergency equipment and relief items in appropriate locations is critical in disaster

response in terms of accessibility. There are some main disaster depots in the defined locations, but

after a disaster, relief items and equipment cannot be easily provided due to transportation problems.

In the earthquake that took place in Turkey in February 2023, casualties increased because

emergency equipment could not be reached immediately, and emergency rescue teams could not

arrive to the disaster area in a short time. Therefore, effective disaster management activities are vital,

and it is important to position ready-to-use relief items and equipment in such a way that people can

easily reach them until organized help arrives.

One of the pre-disaster activities is to prepare and place disaster containers in different locations for

immediate response after a disaster occurs. Disaster containers (i.e., disaster stations) are purpose-

customized containers that contain an inventory of several relief items like generators, rotary hammer

drills, flashlights, first aid kits, medicines, and antiseptics. These emergency items can be used right

after a disaster until more organized help comes so that the first 72 hours can be used more

effectively. As the experts mentioned, the governments in the regions that are particularly risky in

terms of disasters such as earthquakes, and tsunamis prefer to place disaster containers for the

immediate response to minimize the losses.

In this study, firstly, the definition, usage, and importance of disaster containers are explained, and the

current situation of disaster containers is investigated. Some examples from different countries and

cases from different cities in Turkey are shared, and the deficiencies and requirements for the

management of these containers are defined. After that, the studies in the literature related to disaster

containers are investigated, and the defined problems and proposed solution approaches are

explained. As a result of a detailed review, it is concluded that there are not enough studies related to

disaster containers in the literature and there are several deficiencies in real-life applications. In this

context, the defined problems and alternative solution approaches are presented in the study.

Keywords: Disaster Containers, Emergency Relief Items, Disaster Management, Pre-disaster

Activities