How Technology saved life

How did NASA technology help in saving lives during Nepal Earthquake!

A unique suitcase-sized device that can detect human heartbeats and breathing patterns of survivors buried even 30 feet below crushed rock, revolutionized the search and rescue operations in Nepal.

“In Nepal’s village of Chautara, NASA's FINDER prototypes discovered four men who had been trapped under collapsed buildings. The men had been buried beneath as much as 10 feet of debris for several days.”

Nepal is still reeling from the 7.8 magnitude earthquake that struck near Kathmandu on April 25, 2015. The quake has flattened three quarters of the city’s buildings and killed thousands of people. The village of Chatuara was no different; over ninety percent of its homes destroyed, rendering hundreds homeless. Rescue teams from around the world, including India are continuing to provide medical assistance, food, water and other essential items.

Using space age technology, American rescuers were able to locate and rescue four men buried alive under a collapsed building in the village of Chautara in Nepal. They used a device that could detect the heartbeat or breathing of the men who were buried under the rubble.

The prototype device, soon to be commercialized, is named FINDER (Finding Individuals for Disaster and Emergency Response).

Originally, FINDER was developed by NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration), USA, as part of their Deep Space Network program to monitor the movements of their spacecraft flying millions of miles away.

How does it work?

About the size of a piece of carry-on luggage, this state-of-the-art portable heartbeat detector device uses low power radar microwaves, about one-thousandth of a cell-phone’s output, to scan for survivors trapped under rubble.

It’s sensitive enough to discern the difference between a human heartbeat and that of an animal, as well as someone who’s conscious versus one who’s unconscious, which can influence how search-and-rescue workers decide to dig the person out. And it can provide feedback in less than a minute, which is important when there are lives on the line.

Just like a RADAR that tracks airplanes, FINDER emits a signal and waits for that signal to bounce back. The longer the signal takes to come back, the farther away the body is.
Best of all, the unit is small and lightweight, making it optimal for any sort of disaster scenario.
NASA scientists have now added a new feature to the prototype – a ‘locator’ – a kind of a GPS device that can help in precisely locating survivors.

Though FINDER was put to the test in various disaster simulations, this is the first time the technology has managed to save lives in a real-world emergency.