An 80-year-old woman was rescued from the wreckage more than a week after an earthquake hit areas of Turkey and Syria. This is because a SAPS K9 was airlifted in with additional rescue teams to help with search and rescue efforts in the devastated areas.
According to the Gift of the Givers, no other rescue team had looked in the area where the woman was discovered.
Teams worked to save the elderly woman in the Hatay region on Monday. The woman was transported to the hospital by ambulance, according to Dr. Imtiaz Sooliman of Gift of the Givers.
“By bringing in the SAPS K9 sniffer dogs, Gift of Givers, together with the Omani team, located the elderly person in the rubble. Congratulations to the team for pulling someone out alive several days after the earthquake,” he said.
As cleanup efforts continue throughout the nation, more rescue teams are anticipated to arrive in Türkiye.
According to Sooliman, successful search and rescue operations require teamwork, perseverance, resilience, optimism, and faith in addition to technical tools and, most importantly, sniffer dogs.
He recalled a comparable rescue effort in Haiti in 2010, where 64-year-old Ena Zizi was freed from the wreckage of a demolished Catholic church after spending eight days trapped without food or water.
When we work together as a common humanity for the purpose of human beings, there is always a success. Once again, thanks to all the teams involved who made the miracle happen. We are hopeful that some more live persons will be in the same building,” he said.
The quake has claimed over 15 000 lives so far – more than 12 000 in Türkiye and almost 3 000 in Syria. The