ROLE OF FORENSIC ODONTOLOGIST IN SUPPORT OF MASS DISASTER CASES

Mass disasters claim a lot of human life and it becomes a challenging task to identify the non recognizable bodies of thousands of victims. The various forensic dental modalities like dental profiling, ante-mortem and post-mortem matching, DNA fingerprinting, rugae pattern and lip printing can be used for identification of the victims. In this article various mass disaster cases have been discussed where conventional and modern day forensic odontology techniques have been of immense help in human identification. There have been instances in history where forensic odontology has been used to identify more than 80% of the victims in a mass disaster. This books mainly focuses on the role of a forensic odontologist in mass disaster situations.