Surviving Bombs
When bombs go off, don’t automatically rush in to help. Situational awareness is essential. Avoid the second detonation.
In the modern era, there is potentially life-saving information that civilians should know especially when living in and/or working in areas where suicide bombers, car bombs, and overhead bombs are anticipated as very real possibilities.
In the case of Syria, the civilians are being trained and actively using an App developed by a former US Contractor. The app is called Sentry (1).
Men and women around Syria see an airplane overhead and type in the identity of the aircraft type (transport, fighter jet, bomber, cargo), then type in the approximately location (village), and also the direction it's heading. Another person a few minutes later may corroborate where they see it, and then Sentry estimates the plane's trajectory and immediately sends a warning to Facebook, Telegram, Twitter, letting local sirens know as well so that the alarm can be sounded.
In terrorist attacks, every 10 seconds can save tens even hundreds of lives.
People need to know what to do if bombs are falling. You may consider opening your windows so that less glass explodes into the home or building.
I never forgot when a suicide bomber detonated just one block from my home in Kabul - the windows went convex then concave due to the air pressure changes from the bomb but didn't break.
In most of the Middle East and Central Asia, windows are single pane very thin glass. One technique that is helpful is to place wide (2-inch) tape across the inside of the window with strong tape in an "X" to minimize the glass shard damage.
If you can afford to purchase 3M film, it is a better mitigation that will withstand the blast of a suicide bomber, or even an automatic weapons attack. The 3M Safety & Security Film video below can be found at this link to see how it works.
The Sentry app is helping hospitals prepare more quickly and people run to safety when barrel bombs fall.
Apparently, someone (Russia? Syria? USA? Turkey?) drops barrels filled with shrapnel, causing a wide amount of human, animal, infrastructure, and ecological carnage.
(This website discusses the barrel bomb image below).
In Afghanistan, there is a particularly vile approach. Often a suicide bomber - person or car will detonate in an area. DON'T GO AND HELP...YET The secondary bomb is planned to kill even more.
It is not uncommon for the secondary bomb to detonate sometime within the 1st hour after the 1st bomb, killing even more than normal. (2) I've never heard of the secondary bomb going off more than an hour after the first.
To my knowledge, there hasn't ever been a third bomb...
Evil people have booby trapped pens, dolls, shiny objects, things that attract children's attention. Children and adults need training how to spot potential mines and to stay only in mine-cleared areas.
In Turkey, when a bomb goes off, apparently it's almost automatic that the Turkish police/military release tear gas to disperse people. They planned this strategy back in 2013 when the government placed an order for 100,000 gas cartridges. (3) As a civilian, I've never understood the reason for this tear-gas-and-pepper-spray response. However, tuck that info away if you are in Turkey - you have less than 2 minutes, maybe 1 minute to get out of the area of a bomb before the tear gas comes.
This is the kind of practical equipping that folks need when we send them to dangerous places.
With car bombs, simple observation can help with early warning. Cars that have been laden with explosives tend to ride low and have windows in the back obscured,
Sadly, Russia, ISIS, and Hamas has left large areas mined as part of their evil strategy to kill people who do not believe and live the way they do. (4)
It's always the children and women who suffer most.
(1) https://www.dailysabah.com/syrian-crisis/2018/09/13/mobile-app-sentry-warns-syrians-about-regime-airstrikes
(2) https://www.yahoo.com/news/least-19-killed-suicide-attack-afghan-protesters-105314642.html
(3) https://www.rt.com/news/turkey-gas-cybersecurity-protests-013/
(4) https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/isis-bombs-mines-pose-unprecedented-threat-liberated-mosul-iraq-n692066
