French rescue team in Türkiye worked long hours to evacuate survivors

ANKARA (AA) - A French rescue team in Kahramanmaras province in southern Türkiye has worked long hours to evacuate survivors from the rubble of two strong earthquakes that struck last week.

Team leader, Lieut.-Col. Stephane Jay told Anadolu that he came to Türkiye with a 64-member team and six dogs from the Paris region.

"Our team also has … a medical team, a logistics team and four rescue teams who are specialized in urban search and rescue, who are also professional firefighters from the Paris region," he said.

He lamented about having to remove bodies after 13, 14 even 15 hours on site.

"Unfortunately, sometimes it ended in failure. We ended up with people who were dead. So, it was emotionally very hard for the staff," said Jay.

"We arrived four or five days ago, and are here to work for a month -- to treat injured people in the field in quite complicated circumstances because the weather conditions are very difficult," he said.

The first responder said it is very cold at night.

"It’s quite complicated for the victims in the tents to maintain temperatures acceptable for injured people," he said.

Jay said 25 foreign teams were deployed in Kahramanmaras.

"There was cooperation," he said, and initially, the Turkish disaster agency, AFAD, managed coordination.

"Then, the UN (Humanitarian Affairs Coordination) OCHA teams were in charge of the coordination of the USAR (Urban Search and Rescue) teams," he said. "This made it possible to divide into sectors, and to be even more efficient, evaluating the huge number of sectors, to find sites to work at, and save possible victims."

More than 38,000 people have been killed by two strong earthquakes that jolted southern Türkiye on Feb. 6, according to the latest figures.

The 7.7- and 7.6-magnitude earthquakes, centered in the Kahramanmaras province, have affected 13 million people in 11 Turkish provinces, including Adana, Adiyaman, Diyarbakir, Elazig, Gaziantep, Hatay, Kilis, Malatya, Osmaniye and Sanliurfa.

*Writing by Nur Asena Erturk in Ankara