The Polish rescue group deployed to Turkey to assist in the aftermath of Monday’s earthquake has been joined by rescuers with sniffer dogs from Lithuania and Czechia.
The HUSAR rescue team, which consists of 76 firefighters and eight rescue dogs, found signs of life in one of the collapsed buildings in the Turkish town of Besni over the weekend.
The rescuers from the Polish firemen’s service had combed the area with geophones and cameras without success. However, sniffer dogs indicated the presence of a human, and despite the dangers and lack of space to move in, the rescuers continued their search.
Andrzej Bartkowiak, commander-in-chief of the Polish Firemen’s Service, posted information about the rescue mission on Twitter and illustrated it with a short film. In it, a Polish rescuer can be seen crawling through a small hole under a collapsed wall to check for survivors.
The Polish rescue group has so far saved 12 people from the rubble in the Turkish town where 30 blocks of housing were destroyed in the largest natural disaster to strike Turkey in a century.
The team flew out to Turkey on the evening of Monday, Feb. 6, just hours after the earthquake had struck.
The Polish rescue group was initially expected to leave the disaster site on Monday, but Bartkowiak, their commander, has revealed they will now remain in Turkey until Wednesday.
