! Attempt to identify factors related to the survival of those rescued following a building collapse. For example, study the relationship between the incidence of injuries and a building's structural design, the construction materials used, nonstructural components in the building, demographic factors of the community, and the physical circumstances of entrapment. Determining where people are located when they are injured or killed can provide valuable information to assist both in locating potential survivors and in making recommendations to building occupants as to what to do during an earthquake.

! Establish the cause and approximate time of death of a body removed from a collapsed structure in concert with experts in forensic medicine. Then correlate time-of-death estimates with duration of entrapment. Understanding when people die following a building collapse can provide important information for planning rescue efforts and evaluating needed resources.