Duisburg/Gaziantep.
From North Rhine-Westphalia to the earthquake area: Volunteers from the Duisburg organization ISAR will fly to Turkey on Monday evening. How they want to help locally.
With 41 volunteers and eight rescue dogs, the Duisburg aid organization ISAR is planning to fly to Turkey on Monday evening at 7:30 p.m. – right in the middle of an area that was badly damaged by several earthquakes last night. The helpers come from a wide variety of professions, but in the Turkish city of Gaziantep they all have one goal: to help with the rescue and care of buried people.
In the middle of the night on Monday (February 6), at 2:51 a.m., Stefan Heine receives an alarm on his mobile phone: There have been two strong earthquakes in Turkey and Syria. The spokesman for ISAR (International Search and Rescue) from Duisburg is not the only one to receive this warning: Many other ISAR helpers from all over Germany are alerted and immediately check the news situation and contact people on site.
Volunteers from Duisburg help after the earthquake in Turkey
During the course of Monday, the dramatic situation in the earthquake areas became increasingly clear: according to the authorities, more than 1,800 people died in southeastern Turkey and northern Syria. In Turkey alone there are over 1,000 dead, according to the civil protection service Afad. In addition, local aid organizations assume that thousands of people have been buried and injured in the rubble.
The ISAR helpers can use an app to let the headquarters in Duisburg know whether they are available for on-site assistance. Some still have to clarify with their employer whether they can fly away spontaneously – almost all of them do their work as disaster relief workers on a voluntary basis. Just a few hours later it was clear: 41 people and eight rescue dogs want to fly to the disaster area and help on the same day.
Duisburg rescue team works with UN operations management
There is a lot of organization on the agenda for the aid organization from Duisburg: when and where can the helpers fly, what equipment and supplies are they taking with them? On Monday afternoon it is clear that a plane is scheduled to take off at 7:30 p.m. from Cologne-Bonn Airport to Gaziantep, a city of over a million people in Turkey. Only on site is it decided exactly where the ISAR helpers will be deployed.
“In Turkey, we get in touch with the United Nations (UN) operations command and the local aid workers and are then assigned to a precise operational area,” explains Stefan Heine. “It can be an entire village that needs help, a specific street or a single building where people are buried.”
Volunteers sleep in tents when the temperature is below zero
The helpers do not all work full-time as emergency services. There are also firefighters and paramedics who volunteer at ISAR. “But our large circle of helpers covers almost every profession,” says Heine. The helpers practice during a “Qualification phase for assignments abroad” the practical course of rescue operations and how to use rescue equipment. The removal of debris and emergency medical care for injured people are also trained.
The ISAR helpers feed themselves during the deployment period in Turkey, at least ten days on site are planned. In addition to a water treatment plant and food, there are also tents in the luggage – they serve as sleeping places for the volunteers. The temperatures on site are currently below zero, and there is snow in places. However, that does not stop the helpful people from flying to the disaster area without hesitation, as Heine reports.
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