Local hero in Türkiye

Bathonian Rob Davis recently retired from the Fire Service and now works as a Disaster Management Consultant for the Foreign and Commonwealth Development Office and in the Army Reserve (Royal Signals). Rob was one of the original members of Search and Rescue Assistance in Disasters (SARAID) when it was created in 2003, and before that he was a member of another disaster response team. He was deployed to the Mozambique floods in 2000, the Sri Lanka tsunami in 2004, the Pakistan earthquake in 2005, the Haiti earthquakes in 2010 and 2021 and the Beirut explosion in 2020. Here Rob tells us about travelling to Türkiye with SARAID in February this year to assist with the help and rescue operation.

At approximately 4.20am local time on Monday 6 February a massive earthquake hit southern Türkiye and northern Syria. Shortly afterwards, my phone started ringing at 2.20am here in Bath. It rang twice before I realised who was trying to contact me, a colleague on a humanitarian course in the USA had just seen on the news a 7.8 magnitude earthquake had hit southern Türkiye and with all his experience he knew this was likely to be catastrophic.

Within hours myself and my team –Search and Rescue Assistance in Disasters (SARAID) a United Nations (UN) recognised and classified disaster response team –were on standby to fly to the disaster-affected area to provide search and rescue support. SARAID is a Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO) and charity, which receives no government or DEC funding and has responded to most of the major disasters around the world for the last 20 years. Its members are from all walks of life –including firefighters, paramedics, structural engineers and business owners, with all volunteers on call 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.

With all the necessary paperwork and permission to deploy via the UN and Turkish government, SARAID was mobilised on Tuesday 7 February, and due to lack of flights arrived in the country on the Wednesday 8 February where we got straight to work. Part of our UN role is to provide coordination if there is a need and we started with a coordination centre being set up at Adana Airport, the nearest to the disaster-affected communities. Here we left two SARAID coordinators to assist with a German and Swiss team to book and manage international search and rescue teams into the country and get them on to the ground as quickly as possible to undertake search and rescue.

The rest of the team made their way by bus to the city of Kahramanmaras, tasked with search and rescue within the city. Early reports indicated that severe damage had been caused within the 400,000 populated city and that many multi-storey tenement blocks of flats of over eight floors had been completely destroyed.

After a seven-hour road journey, due to the damaged bridges and roads leading to Kahramanmaras, we eventually started to see the city at the foot of some impressive mountains, and the scale of the destruction was shocking. My team members on the bus fell silent as we started to make our way into the city centre and locate one of our partner agencies from Germany. The scale of congestion and local communities on the streets because of the fear of going back into their homes, was very upsetting, a humanitarian disaster unfolding in front of our eyes.

Our first search in the city involved working with the German team and locating a 33-year-old mum and her six-year-old daughter under a six storey block of flats that had completely ‘pancaked’ into the ground. After a about six hours of work we were able to rescue both safely and thankfully our medic confirmed that neitherof them were physically injured in any way. After a through medical check-up, both were placed in an ambulance and taken to hospital.

Twenty four hours later and after many technical searches undertaken by the team in the city we were called to another multifloored building collapse where there were reports of people missing and knocking heard. Here we deployed our DELSAR sound location equipment and called for a K9 search and rescue unit. After deploying the sound location equipment onto the rubble pile and calling for complete silence, we detected a faint but positive knocking on the sound location equipment. Our plan was to use a heavy mechanical excavator to lift a floor slab very carefully and explore underneath. Once the floor slab was lifted, to our relief we found a 15-year-old young lady trapped in a small void. After a few hours of digging and securing the scene we rescued this young lady, again without any injuries.

SARAID successfully rescued three people from the ruins of the Kahramanmaras and instigated coordination in Adana airport and the city of Kahramanmaras, along with dozens of technical searches within the city. The team spent six days searching the city and demobilised on Monday 13 February.

For further information and to learn more, visit the SARAID website –saraid.org.uk –where there is a Justgiving link where you can make a donation to support the charity’s vital work.

Successful, well-established year-round language school in the centre of Bath requires HOMESTAY HOSTS IN BATH to host both short-term and long-term students.

We teach adults and teenagers, and need both single and twin-room accommodation.

For further details, including rates of payment, please contact our Student Services Manager:

Sarah Wringer

Kaplan International Languages Bath, 5 Trim Street, Bath, BA1 1HB

Direct Line (01225) 448840

Email: sarah.wringer@kaplan.com