Kent firefighters save woman trapped after earthquake
Firefighters from Kent have helped in the rescue of a 60-yearold woman who was trapped underneath a building after the earthquake in Turkey.
Three technical rescue firefighters from Kent Fire and Rescue have shared their experiences of being part of the international search and rescue team in the city of Antakya following the devastating earthquake. Jim Chaston, who is based at the technical rescue unit at Maidstone fire station, said: “As you can imagine it’s pretty much a scene of devastation. It’s a really large city that’s almost completely devastated by the earthquake.”
He spoke about a rescue they had helped with, saying: “We ran a dog and the dog gave us a live indication that there was an alive human scent in there. “When we explored a bit more we actually made verbal contact with the casualty and with a bit of hard work and a bit of tunnelling in, we managed to make a small enough hole to get our smallest member through into the void and make contact with the casualty which was obviously the first part of the rescue. “We then had to work out a way of making that hole big enough to get her out.
“I think the whole thing took about three hours. As you can imagine [there was] a lot of local interest around us and just a great feeling of elation when we eventually managed to rescue her.”
KFRS firefighter Brad Rebbeck, a crew manager based at Deal fire station, said: “I was lucky enough to play quite a central part in the first rescue we did with the 60-year-old lady, tunnelling through the building. “We’ve actually made that much difference to someone’s life who, she wouldn’t be here if
we hadn’t had done what we did. “It’s an experience I’ll never forget, that’s for sure.”
The earthquakes – the worst of which had a magnitude of 7.8 on the Richter scale – cut a swath of destruction stretching hundreds of miles across south-eastern Turkey and neighbouring Syria, toppling thousands of buildings.
Aftershocks then rattled tangled piles of metal and concrete, making search efforts even more perilous, while freezing temperatures made them evermore urgent.
The Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, says 13 million of the country’s 85 million people were affected in some way by the disaster.
Martin Stanley, a KFRS technical rescue firefighter usually based at Canterbury fire station, said: “I’ve never seen anything like it, it’s complete devastation, people are just broken.
“I don’t think I can explain to someone with words what it’s like. The whole city is completely devastated, it’s unbelievable.”
The UK International Search and Rescue Team – which the three men are a part of – has also rescued two adults who had been trapped under rubble for 120 hours, as well as a two-yearold girl who had been under the rubble for 101 hours.
The men were deployed to Turkey on February 7, the day after the tragic earthquake. A UK-wide appeal to help the hundreds of thousands of people affected by the earthquakes in Turkey and Syria has been launched.
Agencies including the British Red Cross and Oxfam have come together in aid of the Disasters Emergency Committee (DEC). The DEC estimates 35,000 people have been killed in Turkey and Syria and 17 million people have been affected by the earthquakes, many of them in urgent need of shelter, food and medical aid. It says £30 could provide blankets for six people to keep them warm and £50 could provide emergency food for two families for 10 days.