NASA Ships Heartbeat-Detecting Tech to Help Find Turkey Earthquake Survivors

(Image: Altan Adem/AFP via Getty Images) Efforts are still underway to locate and rescue people trapped under rubble following Turkey’s devastating series of earthquakes. Though the death toll across Turkey (as well as Syria’s and Lebanon’s borders) is estimated to have crossed 46,000, and with a new 6.3-magnitude aftershock just yesterday, search-and-rescue teams are continuing to uncover survivors who have managed to outlast a week or more under collapsed buildings and other debris. Soon those teams will have access to a uniquely advantageous tool: NASA’s FINDER.

FINDER, short for Finding Individuals for Disaster Emergency Response, is a system that detects human heartbeats after a catastrophe. The tool uses microwave radar to pick up on just a millimeter of movement, which occurs when a person’s heart beats or when they’re engaged in shallow breathing. Because the rubble a survivor is trapped under doesn’t move, FINDER can separate these tiny stirrings from the survivor’s surroundings to pinpoint their location.

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) originally asked NASA to create FINDER in 2010 after a 7.0-magnitude earthquake struck Haiti, killing more than 160,000 people and leveling 280,000 buildings. Because the system needed to be deployed quickly, initial iterations weren’t perfect: Solid metal walls were difficult to “see” past, and FINDER couldn’t accurately pick out how many survivors were in a given area. Nonetheless, the tool proved useful, and two public safety equipment companies were soon provided licenses to build commercial FINDER units for search-and-rescue teams.

An emergency responder in Mexico City carries an X3 FINDER while responding to a 7.1 magnitude earthquake. (Image: SpecOps Group Inc.)

Recent versions of FINDER are more impressive. The latest iteration, X3 FINDER, is a lightweight device housed in a durable Pelican case, which emergency responders often use to carry pricy equipment. It can complete a scan in under 30 seconds and send data to a user’s Android or Apple smartphone, making it a valuable tool for those working tirelessly to find earthquake survivors in Turkey. According to NASA, groups in Turkey were sent FINDER units as early as last week.

NASA also hopes to deploy a second tool to assist in the earthquake’s aftermath. EMIT, short for Earth Surface Mineral Dust Source Investigation, was introduced to the International Space Station (ISS) last summer to observe atmospheric material and methane emissions. As EMIT passes over earthquake sites, it can pick up on new or increased emissions that would have resulted from burst pipes or other impaired infrastructure.

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