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Disaster Assistance Response Team

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The Disaster Assistance Response Team (DART) is a rapidly deployable team of 200 individuals and equipment to provide assistance to disaster-affected regions for up to 40 days.

DART was created by the Canadian government in 1996 due to a disaster in Rwanda in 1994, where thousands of people died due to the failure of international relief organizations to respond quickly to a cholera epidemic. The government found that it would be of utmost importance in many disasters to be able to rapidly deploy a group of people until long-term aid arrived. DART is currently commanded by Lieutenant-Colonel Michael R. Voith.

With an annual budget of a mere $500,000, DART is the least funded unit in the Canadian Forces.

Goals

Dart has 4 goals:

  1. Provide basic medical care
    DART has a medical platoon of 40 staff who can serve up to 250 outpatients and 10 inpatients per day. Although the medical station will not perform surgery, it treats minor injuries and attempts to prevent the spread of disease.
    This station has a lab and a pharmacy.
  2. Produce safe drinking water
  3. Repair basic infrastructure
    The engineering platoon of 37 people can fix roads and bridges, build refugee camps, and repair electrical and water supply systems.
  4. Make communication easier

Missions

The Canadian government decides whether or not to send DART after a request from a country or the United Nations. Before the team is sent on a mission, a group of 12 people will survey the area to determine what is needed. These people are from the Department of Foreign Affairs, the Canadian International Developement Agency, National Defence Headquarters and DART itself.

Operation CENTRAL (Honduras)

In October 1998, a category-5 hurricane (Hurricane Mitch) over a period of three days in Central America. As a result, 6,000 people died and over a million were missing or homeless.

DART situated themselves in the middle of Rio Aguan Valley, in north-central Honduras. By virtue of the fact that there were many isolated communities that were connected only by then-broken roads and bridges, DART was given 4 CH-146 helicopters.

In mid-December 1998, DART delivered 250,000 pounds of food, water and medical supplies throughout the valley. Additionally, about 15,000 people were provided with water. Working with the medical personnel in Honduras, DART treated about 7,500 patients for ailments such as respiratory infections, conjunctivitis, skin infections, diarrhea, parasitic infections, and intestinal infections.

Operation TORRENT (Turkey)

File:DART-Operation TORRENT.jpg
DART surveys the demolition in Turkey (Credit: DND)

DART responded to a 7.4-magnitude earthquake that hit north-western Turkey on August 17, 1999. DART was deployed on the following day, and set up a camp in Serdivan, a suburb of Adapazari, which had 180,000 people. During this mission, DART personnel assisted in cleaning up a school, restored electricity, and designed and constructed a tented camp which could hold 2,500 people. This camp also had washroom and shower facilities. DART treated 5,000 patients, and produced 2.5 million litres of bulk water.

Operation STRUCTURE (Sri Lanka)

On 6 January 2005, a plane carrying 150 DART members departed for Sri Lanka, a country that suffered tremendously as a result of the 2004 Indian Ocean Earthquake. On 8 January 2005, 50 more members arrived in Sri Lanka.

The team brought 4 water purification units, which can provide up to 200,000 litres of clean water per day.

The Canadian government was critisized for being so slow to respond to the immense foreign aid required in Sri Lanka. Although the DART team was ready to leave within 24 hours of when the disaster struck, the government took 2 days to announce that they would be sending DART. Still, it took nearly 2 weeks for DART to actually leave to Sri Lanka due to political debates as to whether they should be sent. CTV claims that Defence Minister Bill Graham argued that it was justified to send them, but Foreign affairs Minister Pierre Pettigrew and the Minister of international co-operation Aileen Carroll were inittially opposed to doing so.

References

Missions

Operation STRUCTURE

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