UPDATE - Spain sending drones, aid, search and rescue teams to Türkiye

ADDS NEW ASSISTANCE ANNOUNCEMENT; CHANGES HEADLINE, LEDE, EDITS THROUGHOUT

By Beyza Binnur Donmez and Alyssa McMurtry

OVIEDO, Spain (AA) – Spain is preparing to send aid and nearly 100 troops and firefighters to Türkiye after two powerful earthquakes hit the country’s southern and southeastern regions, killing some 1,500 people, authorities announced Monday.

Spain will send two airplanes to assist the search and rescue efforts, said Defense Minister Margarita Robles.

An Airbus A400 departing from Madrid will carry 35 firefighters and a “significant amount of aid,” she explained.

Spain’s Military Emergency Unit is sending 56 troops, along with “all the material needed to help with the rescue,” on an A330 military plane from the Moron Air Base near Seville.

According to Robles, the airplanes will depart as “soon as they are ready” and have received all the required overfly permissions from other countries.

Robles told her Turkish counterpart that Spain is “willing to send whatever is needed,” she said.

Earlier, Spain’s Foreign Ministry said: “Spain has immediately mobilized troops and drones from the Military Emergency Unit, which will travel to Malatya airport, where Turkish authorities have established an international aid center.”

Spain also has a key military operation in Türkiye near the border with Syria. Its Patriot contingent includes around 150 troops, an operations center, and six Patriot missile launchers in the Adana province, parts of which were devastated by the earthquake.

Robles said the Spanish troops did feel the quakes but that neither Spanish personnel nor equipment were harmed.

Spain’s Foreign Ministry noted that Spanish representations in the area are monitoring the situation and that no calls had been received from Spanish citizens.