Investigation on evacuation behavior and analysis of traumatic factors of tornado victims in Kaiyuan

  Objective  To analyze the behavior characteristics of crowd evacuation and the cognition of disaster prevention and mitigation against tornado disaster, explore the potential factors affecting the occurrence of trauma among victims, and provide basis for urban emergency management and emergency medical rescue.

  Methods  A total of 146 victims of tornado disaster in Kaiyuan City on July 3, 2019 were randomly selected, and their evacuation behavior, disaster situation, awareness of disaster prevention and mitigation, etc. were investigated by questionnaire. Logistic regression model was used to analyze the influencing factors of the victims' trauma.

  Results  The tornado in Kaiyuan was EF - 3. Of the 146 victims interviewed, 86.30% had junior high school education or below; 71 respondents (48.6%)were injured in the tornado. When the disaster occurred, The first reaction of nearly 70% victims was to take certain measures to protect their own or their families' personal safety; 73.3% of the victims were able to evacuate on their own when the tornado disaster occurred; 78 people (53.42%)reached the shelter within 5 minutes. More than 80% of the victims were aware of the danger of the tornado. The results of logistic regression analysis showed that compared with the victims aged lower than 40 years old or the male, the victims aged higher than 60 years old or the female were less likely to be injured in tornadoes (OR=0.26, 0.60, P < 0.05); compared with disaster victims who payed attention to meteorological knowledge, disaster victims who payed less or no attention were more likely to be injured in tornadoes (OR=8.22, 13.47, P < 0.05); compared with victims who had some knowledge of defense, victims who were not sure about the accuracy of defense knowledge and did not know about defense knowledge were more likely to be injured in tornadoes (OR=4.62, 4.11, P < 0.05).

  Conclusions  The local residents' self -rescue ability to tornado was not strong, and their awareness of disaster prevention was insufficient. It is necessary to guide local residents to take the initiative to pay attention to meteorological knowledge, carry out tornado disaster prevention knowledge education, and improve disaster resistance.