ABSTRACT
Disaster Victim Identifi cation (DVI) is the term given to the procedures used to positively identify deceased victims of a multiple-casualty event (Victorian Disaster Victim Identifi cation Manual 2005). In all mass fatalities, the deceased need to be identifi ed to the satisfaction of the local jurisdictional authorities, such as the Coroner (in Australia and Great Britain) or the Chief Medical Examiner (in the United States of America). In a domestic context, forensic experts usually work as an extension of the local legal process, and individual identifi cation goes hand in hand with determination of cause of death. However, in mass disasters the cause of death may already be known or strongly suspected (for example, shrapnel type injury, inhalation of fi re fumes), and identifi cation therefore becomes the most diffi cult and resource-intensive task. Identifi cation is, however, not just a legal requirement but has moral, ethical, and fi nancial ramifi cations. For both legal and compassionate reasons, forensic specialists need to ascertain how many individuals are represented and, as far as possible, match the remains against available records of known persons involved in the disaster.
