Dead Bodies from Natural Disasters Do Not Pose Health Risks, WHO Says

 A member of a rescue team searches for dead bodies, following deadly floods in Derna, Libya September 17, 2023. (Reuters)
A member of a rescue team searches for dead bodies, following deadly floods in Derna, Libya September 17, 2023. (Reuters)
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Dead Bodies from Natural Disasters Do Not Pose Health Risks, WHO Says

 A member of a rescue team searches for dead bodies, following deadly floods in Derna, Libya September 17, 2023. (Reuters)
A member of a rescue team searches for dead bodies, following deadly floods in Derna, Libya September 17, 2023. (Reuters)

Contrary to popular belief, the bodies of victims of natural disasters rarely pose a health threat to communities, the Red Cross and the World Health Organization (WHO) said, calling for precautions and protection of drinking water sources by keeping the bodies away, according to Agence France Press (AFP).

"Those who survive an event like a natural disaster are more likely to spread disease than dead bodies," noted experts.

Their advice comes after major flooding in Libya and an earthquake in Morocco that left thousands of deaths. When buried under rubble, scattered over it, or floating in water, dead bodies make a terrible scene that often prompts people to rush to bury them.

Authorities often try to bury the dead as swiftly as possible, which can heighten suffering for relatives and create legal problems for victims' families.

Injuries, drowning and burns

Generally, the remains of victims of natural disasters - or wars - do not cause epidemics, because people die as a result of injuries, drowning, or burns, and therefore they don’t carry germs that are likely to cause epidemics, according to the World Health Organization and the Red Cross Society. This means that corpses pose a "negligible" health risk.

However, the case is different with deaths resulting from infectious diseases such as Ebola, Marburg or cholera, or if disaster strikes in an area where infectious diseases are endemic.

"Those who survive an event like a natural disaster are more likely to spread disease than dead bodies," said Pierre Guyomarch, head of forensics at the Red Cross.

Protection of water sources

In the aftermath of any disaster, precautions must be taken to protect water sources, which could become contaminated with feces that come out of dead bodies.

Drinking contaminated water could cause diarrhea or other diseases. The water intended for consumption should simply be disinfected using ordinary means to eliminate dangerous germs.

"It's not the body that's the main cause of danger, it's everything in the water," such as mud and chemicals, noted WHO spokesperson Margaret Harris.

Avoiding rushed burial

But the idea that corpses can spread disease is a misunderstanding which often "pushes people to hastily bury the dead and make it more likely that people will go missing, leaving their loved ones in anguish for years to come," said Bilal Sablouh, regional forensics advisor for Africa at the International Committee of the Red Cross.

The pressure resulting from such rumors in particular could encourage mass burials that are carried out in a hurry and in a way that rarely honors the dead.

"We urge authorities in communities touched by tragedy to not rush forward with mass burials or mass cremations," said Dr. Kazunobu Kojima, medical officer for biosafety and biosecurity in WHO’s Health Emergencies Program.

The WHO and Red Cross recommend the identification of bodies, well managed burials that include easily traceable and properly documented individual graves in demarcated burial sites.

Lime powder does not hasten decomposition, and since dead bodies in disaster or conflict are generally not an infectious risk, the disinfection of these bodies is not needed.



Alien Planet Lashed by Huge Flares from its 'Angry Beast' Star

File Photo: An imagined view of the three planets orbiting an ultracool dwarf star just 40 light-years from Earth discovered using a specialist telescope at ESO's La Silla Observatoryin Chile. ESO/M. Kornmesser/N. Risinger
File Photo: An imagined view of the three planets orbiting an ultracool dwarf star just 40 light-years from Earth discovered using a specialist telescope at ESO's La Silla Observatoryin Chile. ESO/M. Kornmesser/N. Risinger
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Alien Planet Lashed by Huge Flares from its 'Angry Beast' Star

File Photo: An imagined view of the three planets orbiting an ultracool dwarf star just 40 light-years from Earth discovered using a specialist telescope at ESO's La Silla Observatoryin Chile. ESO/M. Kornmesser/N. Risinger
File Photo: An imagined view of the three planets orbiting an ultracool dwarf star just 40 light-years from Earth discovered using a specialist telescope at ESO's La Silla Observatoryin Chile. ESO/M. Kornmesser/N. Risinger

Scientists are tracking a large gas planet experiencing quite a quandary as it orbits extremely close to a young star - a predicament never previously observed.

This exoplanet, as planets beyond our solar system are called, orbits its star so tightly that it appears to trigger flares from the stellar surface - larger than any observed from the sun - reaching several million miles (km) into space that over time may strip much of this unlucky world's atmosphere, Reuters reported.

The phenomenon appears to be caused by the planet's interaction with the star's magnetic field, according to the researchers. And this star is a kind known to flare, especially when young.

"A young star of this type is an angry beast, especially if you're sitting as close up as this planet does," said Netherlands Institute for Radio Astronomy astrophysicist Ekaterina Ilin, lead author of the study published in the journal Nature.

The star, called HIP 67522, is slightly more massive than the sun and is located about 407 light-years from Earth in the constellation Centaurus. A light-year is the distance light travels in a year, 5.9 trillion miles (9.5 trillion km).

This star and planet, as well as a second smaller gas planet also detected in this planetary system, are practically newborns. Whereas the sun and our solar system's planets are roughly 4.5 billion years old, this star is about 17 million years old, with its planets slightly younger.

The planet, named HIP 67522 b, has a diameter almost the size of Jupiter, our solar system's largest planet, but with only 5% of Jupiter's mass. That makes it one of the puffiest exoplanets known, with a consistency reminiscent of cotton candy (candy floss).

It orbits five times closer to its star than our solar system's innermost planet Mercury orbits the sun, needing only seven days to complete an orbit.

A flare is an intense eruption of electromagnetic radiation emanating from the outermost part of a star's atmosphere, called the corona. So how does HIP 67522 b elicit huge flares from the star? As it orbits, it apparently interacts with the star's magnetic field - either through its own magnetic field or perhaps through the presence of conducting material such as iron in the planet's composition.

"We don't know for sure what the mechanism is. We think it is plausible that the planet moves within the star's magnetic field and whips up a wave that travels along magnetic field lines to the star. When the wave reaches the stellar corona, it triggers flares in large magnetic field loops that store energy, which is released by the wave," Ilin said.

"As it moves through the field like a boat on a lake, it creates waves in its wake," Ilin added. "The flares these waves trigger when they crash into the star are a new phenomenon. This is important because it had never been observed before, especially at the intensity detected."

The researchers believe it is a specific type of wave called an Alfvén wave, named for 20th century Swedish physicist and Nobel Prize laureate Hannes Alfvén, that propagates due to the interaction of magnetic fields.

The flares may heat up and inflate the planet's atmosphere, which is dominated by hydrogen and helium. Being lashed by these flares could blast away lighter elements from the atmosphere and reduce the planet's mass over perhaps hundreds of millions of years.

"At that time, it will have lost most if not all the light elements, and become what's called a sub-Neptune - a gas planet smaller than Neptune," Ilin said, referring to the smallest of our solar system's gas planets.

The researchers used observations by two space telescopes: NASA's TESS, short for Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite, and the European Space Agency's CHEOPS, short for CHaracterising ExOPlanet Satellite.

The plight of HIP 67522 b illustrates the many circumstances under which exoplanets exist.

"It is certainly no sheltered youth for this planet. But I am not sad about it. I enjoy diversity in all things nature, and what this planet will eventually become - perhaps a sub-Neptune rich in heavy elements that did not evaporate - is no less fascinating than what we observe today."