Update Tanzania collaspe: CRASAR not needed

Posted by admin on Mar 29, 2013 at 5:10 pm America/Chicago

We have been communicating with the Tanzanian Embassy in London and the response is winding down- we won't be needed, though we may be asked to engage the Tanzanian response community at a later date to expose them to the advances in rescue robotics. We extend our condolences for the families of the four dead and two injured reported this morning in the news, and hope that the missing will be found. We are watching the Tanzania building collapse with great sorrow and wish the Tanzanian people and responders the best as they struggle to help the victims and families and deal with their losses. We are on internal stand-by and hope to be invited to assist. In a dense building collapse like this, very small tethered robots can often go 20 to 30 m further than the 8m or so that traditional search camera systems can penetrate. The Japanese Active Scope Camera is also great for dense collapses, as seen at our deployment at the Berkman Plaza collapse in Jacksonville.