‘Exhausted’ B.C. rescue team returns home from Turkey earthquake zone Tuesday | 24CA News

A crew of B.C. search-and-rescue consultants deployed to assist discover victims of devastating earthquakes in Turkey and Syria is slated to return dwelling Tuesday.

The Burnaby Urban Search and Rescue (USAR) crew flew to Turkey the day after final Monday’s 7.8 and seven.5-magnitude quakes, which killed no less than 35,000 individuals, and has been working flat out to try to discover survivors since.

“They’re just exhausted right now,” crew director Scott Murchison advised Global News Morning.

The volunteer crew, which is usually made up of firefighters from Burnaby, beforehand deployed to Nepal after its 2015 earthquake and the Bahamas following Hurricane Dorian in 2019.

On Thursday, its members efficiently pulled a girl from the rubble in Adiyaman, a metropolis in southeastern Turkey. It took six hours to dig the girl out of a collapsed six-storey concrete condominium constructing.

2:04Burnaby Search and Rescue crew serving to save lives in Turkey

“It was elation — everyone was just so happy — you work so hard and it’s such an emotional time because there are family members around, and to actually get to someone is very difficult to do,” Murchison defined.

“They have since then been running on adrenaline, (with) very little sleep, and just trying to get out there and search whatever they can. It’s a very difficult task, but they did get the woman out alive, she was conscious, and I just heard today she just had a little bit of injury to her kidneys because of the lack of water for the days she went, but other than that she is doing good.”

Murchison mentioned the crew has been working with the Turkish authorities, different worldwide businesses and volunteers to assist in any means they will.

The 10-member crew has been conducting focused searches in areas the place there have been indicators of life, in addition to supporting different groups.

“We do anything from first aid, capacity building for first responders, humanitarian aid, and in this case we’re doing lots of searching of buildings because there are tons of downed buildings, so we are using our search cameras and our acoustic sound devices to listen for people and then try and get to them,” Murchison mentioned.

Thousands of rescue groups, together with Turkish coal miners and consultants aided by sniffer canines and thermal cameras, continued to go looking pulverized condominium blocks for indicators of life Monday, nevertheless, hopes of discovering many extra survivors have begun to fade.

2:50Burnaby search and rescue crew heading to Turkey to assist in earthquake response

Officials estimate that greater than 5,700 buildings collapsed in Turkey on account of the quakes.

Efforts to search out meals and shelter for 1000’s of individuals left homeless by the catastrophe proceed.

Murchison mentioned working amid the survivors of the earthquake has been heartbreaking for his crew.

“Because we are there and we are able to go home after, but this is their home and this is their reality for the next while,” he mentioned.

“So the team there is just doing anything they can to help them out in any way possible.”

The Turkish consulate flew the Burnaby USAR crew into the catastrophe zone to assist and it acquired some assist from a NGO, however the crew is in any other case primarily self-funded, which means some members have gone out of pocket on the deployment.

Murchison mentioned they sometimes have a seven-day deployment window, however the work of different rescue groups will proceed after they depart.

The crew is anticipated to the touch down on the Vancouver International Airport round 5 p.m. Feb. 14.

– with a file from the Associated Press

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