Illustration photo – The Czech USAR team during the intervention after the earthquake in the Turkish city of Adiyaman, February 10, 2023.
Adiyaman (Turkey)/Prague – Rescuers from the Czech Republic have rescued 50 dead so far 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 this evening. Czech firefighters have been helping in the areas affected by the earthquake 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. Some foreign rescuers are withdrawing from Turkey prematurely due to the deterioration of the security situation. But the Czech team is not thinking about it yet, the situation in the place of his operation is calm, said ČTK Kozák.
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Photo gallery: Earthquake in Turkey and Syria
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“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 spokesperson wrote. Czech rescuers are now deployed in the sector with three collapsed buildings together with teams from the USA and Bangladesh. They will probably work there for two more days. “There is a constant fire at the given place, the fire significantly complicates the situation,” added Kozák. Jiří Němčík, head of the Czech team, said on Twitter today that rescuers from the Czech Republic are now in the center of the city of Adiyaman, where together with other foreign teams and local forces they are trying to get more people out of the rubble.
The Czech rescuers do not yet plan to end their activities early, despite reports of a worsening security situation from other areas of Turkey. “The security situation in the place where we are is fine. So we are not considering leaving the place for security reasons,” fire department spokesman Kozák told ČTK early this evening.
Rescue work in Turkey has already been prematurely terminated by the Israelis, Austrians and Slovaks. According to The Times of Israel, the spokesman for the Israeli rescuers said that he also had information about kidnapping threats to foreign groups. Already on Saturday, Austrian and German rescuers operating in Hatay province announced that they would suspend operations due to security concerns. They said that there was an increase in aggression between local groups and that they also heard gunshots. However, unlike the area where the Czechs operate, Hatay Province is right on the border with Syria, where the civil war continues.
In addition to the 50 recovered bodies, Czech rescuers pulled survivors from the rubble and assisted colleagues from another team in the rescue women.
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 36,000 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.
