On the ground in Nias in response to an earthquake--an emergency team's experience.

Within a few short months of the tsunami, an earthquake measuring 8.7 on the Richter scale devastated the Indonesian island of Nias. The present paper describes the experiences of two emergency medicine staff deployed to the island operating in small teams on the remote western part of the island. It discusses the benefits of utilizing experienced emergency medicine staff and looks at lessons learnt from the deployment.