Illustration photo – Czech USAR team during the response after the earthquake in the Turkish city of Adiyaman, February 10, 2023.
Adiyaman (Turkey)/Prague – Rescuers from the Czech Republic rescued three more dead people in the Turkish city of Adiyaman. In places where, after the intervention of specially trained dogs, they hoped to find alive people, no survivors were found. Jakub Kozák, the spokesman of the Czech fire brigade, informed about this today. Czech firefighters have been helping in the earthquake-affected areas since last week. They will probably stay for a few more days. A spokesman said they were putting out collapsed buildings affected by the fire.
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Photo gallery: Earthquakes in Turkey and Syria
“We ended the intervention at the collapsed building, we rescued three dead people there. The team from Poland did not find any living people in any of the places marked by our dogs, and they ended the search,” the spokesman wrote. “We will probably work for two more days on the sector with three collapsed buildings, where we are deployed together with teams from the USA and Bangladesh,” he said. “The place is constantly burning, the fire significantly complicates the situation,” he added.
Rescuers from the Czech Republic said on Sunday that they had rescued 35 dead from the rubble, so with the three announced today, there should be 38 bodies. They rescued two survivors and assisted colleagues from another team in rescuing a woman.
The Czech Republic originally sent a team of 68 rescuers to Turkey, whose members include doctors, construction engineers and cynologists in addition to firefighters. The so-called USAR (Urban Search and Rescue) team arrived in Turkey last Tuesday. He was joined at the weekend by two more firefighters who flew in on an Army CASA plane along with a load of humanitarian aid and firefighting equipment. The humanitarian aid mainly consisted of clothes.
The 7.8-magnitude earthquake and hundreds of aftershocks mainly affected the south of Turkey, but they were also felt by the northwest of Syria. It has claimed more than 28,000 victims so far. Even five days after the tremors, rescuers continued to find survivors in the ruins of the cities, Turkish media reported, according to the AP agency. But hopes for more rescues are falling along with the temperatures. In Syria, search and humanitarian operations are complicated by the complex domestic political and security situation. Access to regions under the control of insurgent groups is especially difficult.
The Czech USAR team abroad helped in the past, for example, in Beirut, Lebanon, in 2020 after an explosion in the port, which claimed the lives of two hundred people and injured another 6,000. In the Czech team at that time, along with firefighters, there were also cynologists with dogs, a structural engineer and a doctor.
