Bangladesh: Reshma third longest collapse survivor

Available data suggests Reshma is the third in the list of the longest survivors under the rubbles in the world. According to a BBC report, Naqsha Bibi survived on rotten food and water for 63 days in what had been her kitchen after 2005 Pakistan quake. After 27 days of the 2010 Haiti tremor, rescuers had pulled out Evans Monsignac alive from beneath the rubble. Monsignac survived drinking sewage water. Reshma was retrieved from the rubble 16 days after Rana plaza at Savar crumbled in a heap of rubble. Rescuers quoting her said she had access to leftover food for the first two weeks, but in the last two days she had run out of stock. After 16 days of the South Korea supermarket collapse in 1995, Park Seung Hyun was pulled out alive. Hyun survived drinking rainwater. Pedrito Dy spent 14 days in the ruins of a hotel after the 1990 Philippines tremor. Dy drank water and urine. The miraculous rescue of Reshma raised the question in the public domain as to how long one can survive under the debris. The United Nations usually decides to call off search and rescue attempts between five and seven days after a disaster, once no-one has been saved for a day or two - but people have been known to survive for much longer.ulie Ryan, a co-ordinator with UK-based International Rescue Committee (IRC), says that survival largely depends on what happens the moment the quake first hits. “The ideal situation is to become trapped and entombed but have some sort of oxygen supply from the outside world, not injured and also have some sort of access to water,” she told the BBC. “You have usually managed to get yourselves into some sort of void where you are enclosed by the building but it doesn't injure you.” She said an IRC team rescued three boys who had been buried in the ruins of their school for five days after the earthquake in Pakistan in 2005. Doctors say after being trapped people lose their mobility and that reduces their chance of survival. Being unable to move or having injuries to limbs can lead to crush syndrome whereby blood flow to the limbs is disrupted. When the crush is removed, a build-up of toxins floods the body and it is unable to cope. It causes kidney damage and shock, people are in agony with the pain and have a high risk of developing renal failure if they do not get urgent medical care. The BBC reported that being trapped in a confined space also means a rising temperature and an increase in carbon dioxide, which, if it reaches too high a level, leads to suffocation. Search teams monitor for rising levels of CO2 in a building - a rise means someone is trapped inside and breathing. When CO2 levels stop rising, the search is no longer needed. Graham Payne, Chairman and founder of rescue charity Rapid, told the BBC trapped people could go quiet for hours at a time if they passed out or fell asleep but teams never gave up on them. “You think you've lost them but you carry on. It might be another eight hours, then they start making noise again. “But if they're trapped and we can hear, then we get them out, we don't give up.” The rescuers say they did not find major injuries when Reshma was rescued. She said she had found a safe place and had some air and light.