The Dutch search and rescue team USAR will again search for earthquake survivors in Turkey on Saturday. But “the chance of finding someone is extremely slim,” says team member Jop Heinen on the sixth day since the earthquakes in Turkey and Syria.
On Friday, the team managed to pull an 8-year-old boy alive from under the rubble, 106 hours after the earthquakes. Heinen says minutes later another rescue team had just found a deceased child. “This means that we are pushed back and forth in terms of the feelings and experiences we have here as a team in providing help to all those affected.”
Hatay
The rescue team is active in Hatay. In the night from Friday to Saturday it was cold again with the temperature in the morning below freezing, Heinen says. “We will make another effort. Soon two rescue teams will start working in the area,” he says. “Hopefully we can take that tiny chance to meet someone and we can mean something to the severely affected population.”
In recent days, the Dutch rescue team has rescued eleven people. USAR departed Eindhoven Airport on Monday evening bound for Turkey and set up base camp in the disaster area on Tuesday. The team consists of employees from the police, fire brigade, ambulance services and defense who have been specially trained for this. There are also eight rescue dogs with them.
24,000
The death toll from Monday’s earthquakes in southeast Turkey has risen to more than 24,000. Turkey reports 20,665 dead on Saturday morning, more than 450 more than the number recorded on Friday. In Syria, 3,384 deaths were reported on Friday, according to local media.
According to the Turkish emergency service AFAD, 93,000 people have been evacuated from the disaster area. Approximately 166,000 emergency responders provide emergency aid to victims. Almost 1,900 aftershocks were counted from the two strong earthquakes early on Monday morning, according to the AFAD.
Source: BNR
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