Hungary has offered a unit with considerable experience in search and rescue, ready to go if the Turkish government indicates its willingness to receive them.Continue reading
The Hungarian Reformed Church Aid is sending another 11-member search and rescue team to the site of the earthquakes in Turkey. In a statement sent to MTI on Thursday evening, the aid organization said that after the other team that left for Turkey on Tuesday, rescue officers and nurses, military paramedics, and firefighters have now been sent to the site with a debris search dog and special equipment, helmets, and thermal cameras.
The statement quoted Viktoria Katona, deputy executive director of the Hungarian Reformed Church Aid, as saying that the team members are able to provide professional assistance to the Turkish disaster aid community and the medical team. She added that in addition to the human resources, the charity had delivered four tons of donations worth fifteen million forints (EUR 38,600) to the site.
The second team of the Hungarian Reformed Church Aid left for Turkey on Thursday evening. Image: MTI/Szigetváry Zsolt
Péter Trencsényi, head of the delegation’s mission, stressed that they would reinforce the work of the teams on the ground with dogs trained in searching through rubble and the affected areas, with rescue officers, paramedics, and firefighting specialists, and could also be involved in the care of the injured already rescued. “We are taking out more power equipment and specialized technical tools that can help in finding, rescuing, and caring for both children and adults,” he said.
In Turkey, there are more than 100 members of Hungarian rescue teams who are working continuously to save earthquake victims.
A correspondent from public television channel M1 is also on the scene, reporting that experts from the HUNOR Rescue Organization and the Counter Terrorism Center were carrying out excavations and surveys throughout the day on Thursday. Csaba Lantos said that the teams were unblocking lift shafts, after which they mapped the passages with measuring devices, typically thermal cameras. Where they found signs of life, they immediately started exploration.
The death toll from the earthquakes in Turkey has exceeded 21,500 and as the days pass, the chances of finding survivors under the rubble are now dwindling. Hungarian rescuers are also getting increasingly tired, but they say they are energized when they manage to rescue survivors from the rubble. So far, they have managed to rescue 35 people.
The earthquakes have also affected northern Syria, where the number of victims has exceeded 3,000. Hungarian aid organizations are also present there, with the Hungarian Maltese Charity Service having installed three mobile rescue stations. Furthermore, a Syrian-Hungarian rescue team is working day and night to rescue people from the rubble.
Hungarian President Katalin Novák wrote on her Facebook page that she assured the Turkish President and the leaders of the Syrian churches of the sympathy of the Hungarians. At the same time, she thanked the Hungarian rescue teams for their sacrificial work.
Featured photo via Farkas Roland/HUNOR