Aspects of Information Science in Disaster Victims Identification

Abstract

Disasters are topics of great sociological interest for several reasons, including the deaths that eventually occur and the serious damage caused. In disasters with multiple fatalities, forensic identification is essential for humanitarian, civil and criminal reasons. This identification process is internationally called Disaster Victim Identification (DVI). The DVI process dynamics requires protocol adoption aiming to minimize the damages resulting from the event and to maximize the available resources to accomplish the mission successfully. In this vein, it’s imperative the definition of an effective communication structure that ensures critical information is transmitted to recipients. Objects of Information Science study are present in all activities developed in a DVI response, from the origin of information to its retrieval and use. The objective of this article is to demonstrate some aspects of Information Science in the DVI response, for this in the first section there is an introduction aiming to offer a first contact with the proposed theme, followed by a section with a literature review on DVI. The third section seeks to present the relationship and some aspects of Information Science in the DVI activity. In the fourth section, the dynamics of the activities are presented in a real case: the DVI response on the occasion of the rupture of the Brumadinho dam. The fifth and last section presents the final considerations.