Police response to disaster

Responding to tragedy

...although the functions of the Police have not been set down by statute, there is universal acceptance that these are primarily the preservation of life and property. It follows naturally from this that the Police have a clear duty to adopt all reasonable means towards these ends.

Commissioner of Police C. L. Spencer 1963

The New Zealand Police has always been the nerve centre of land-based rescue efforts because it has the nation-wide 24-hour presence and the communications network to respond to emergencies. Most incidents are small-scale and local and can be handled from the police and volunteer resources of the district where they occur. Occasionally, however, an event occurs on a much larger scale, such as an earthquake, a major air or train crash or a storm of exceptional destructiveness. These require the mobilisation of much greater resources, not merely of the police but sometimes of the armed forces and trained, physically fit volunteers, such as members of tramping clubs. In these larger events the police usually provide the overall co-ordination and liaison.

Public and media interest is largely in the immediate event of a mass tragedy, but the police role does not end with the rescue or with the recovery of remains. The survivors must be cared for; distressed relatives must be given accurate information as quickly as possible and be comforted without letting them impede the rescue; remains must be identified; property must be identified and returned to its owners; evidence must be collected for any inquiries and legal proceedings to follow. The aftermath goes on for months, even sometimes years. Above all, lessons must be learnt for next time. Disasters are fortunately rare, so it is important to record and transmit what is learnt. By chance certain individuals were involved in more than one of the three events described here and were directly able to transfer experience gained the previous time.

Before the Second World War there was no national organisation for civil defence or search and rescue. In 1948-49, as a member of the International Civil Aviation Organisation, New Zealand subscribed to a convention requiring it to form a Search and Rescue (SAR) Committee to search for missing aircraft. This was centred on the Civil Aviation Authority but it became the nucleus of a national network of Search and Rescue committees. By the time of the Tangiwai disaster of Christmas Eve 1953, there was a rudimentary SAR organisation but most of the arrangements were improvised on the spot with the aid of the army and navy personnel and facilities at Waiouru and HMS Irirangi, as well local volunteers. By the time of the wreck of the TEV Wahine on 10 April 1968, there was a functioning civil defence structure which permitted an organised rescue that was as successful as possible in the circumstances. The recovery of the bodies and property from Air New Zealand flight TE 901 on Mt Erebus on 29 November 1979 was undertaken under the most taxing conditions imaginable and could not have been contemplated without the fullest co-operation of all the partners.

By Susan Butterworth