In this paper, we propose an ad-hoc unicursal protocol for communication systems in disaster situations. This protocol is designed for gathering information about rescues effectively in a big earthquake. For the longevity of networks, terminals are connected to each other in linear form in our protocol, which makes the communication loads among terminals relatively equal. In order to decrease frequency of packet sending, our protocol introduces virtual terminals, in which two neighbouring terminals activates alternatively. Experimental results show that our protocol needs less packets and that the average life time of terminals is longer than other protocols.Reference to this paper should be made as follows: Asakura, K., Takikawa, H., Oishi, J. and Watanabe, T. (2010) 'An ad-hoc unicursal protocol for stable and long-lived communication systems in disaster situations ', Int. 2003. His research interests include knowledge management of personal intelligent activity, computer-supported collaborative learning, social environment simulation, spatio-temporal model and geographic information systems and so on. He is a member of the ACM, AAAI, AACE, KES International and the IEEE-CS.