“The first image we saw when we arrived in the affected areas was of people running through the streets looking for their loved ones among the ruins. There were no undamaged buildings. Even those that have survived can collapse at any moment in the event of an aftershock.”

Giannis Rigas has been working as a rescuer for EKAV for the past two years and participates in the Special Disaster Medicine Unit (EDIK). On the morning of February 6, he was on vacation at home when his superiors called him and said that an earthquake had occurred in Turkey and that a Greek search and rescue team was going to immediately leave for a neighboring country. . “I didn’t think about it for a minute, I said, ‘I’m going,’ and two hours later I was at the Elefsina military airfield.”

From Mati to Hatay

Prior to joining EKAV, Rigas was a volunteer rescuer and was in fact in Mati in the summer of 2018, shortly after the deadly fire. Then, as now, what he saw shocked him. “In everyday life, we, the rescuers, are faced with many unpleasant incidents, and we are prepared for this. No matter how strong you are, at some point you see these images and humanly bend. I remember as soon as we arrived from EMAK to the city of Hatay and did not have time to get out, the inhabitants ran up to us, pulled us and asked to help them, because one of them was buried among the ruins. There were too many people in the trap and we needed to figure out where to go first. They begged us, hugged us, pulled us.”

They came at us, pulled us and asked to help them, because one of them was buried in the ruins.

He explains that the mission of all 8 members of ETIK-EKAB (two doctors and six rescuers) was to help all the people who were freed from the rubble by EMAK firefighters: “When they handed her over to us,” he says about A 6-year-old girl who was rescued by the Greek mission in Hatay – we gave her oxygen, stabilized her cervical spine with a splint and tried to warm her as much as we could because let’s not forget that it was very cold. “But they also offered help to the local population, who, especially in the first days after the earthquake, did not have access to basic medical care.Most of them, according to Mr. Rigas, fractures, chest injuries, breathing problems, many had amputations. ” We tried to save as many as possible, but unfortunately some of the voices of the trapped people that we heard in the early days, calling for help, eventually fell silent. you could do mother, that’s what you need to do quickly to be able to hear them,” he says.

warm welcome

Giannis Rigas, like his colleagues, describes how warmly they were received by the local population: “It is true that we were received very warmly. We often heard the words Yunan and Yunanistan, which means Greek and Greek, and they hugged us, brought bread and tea to keep us warm.” He also describes a typical scene that took place during the departure of the Greek mission, when the Turkish rescuer asked him to change his shirt as a sign of gratitude and love.

Himself, answering related question from “K”, added that over time, the pain and grief of the local population was replaced by anger, which led to dangerous working conditions for members of the rescue teams. “Our security has been compromised at times. In recent days, trucks with Turkish military guards have arrived, who have pledged to accompany us in search and rescue operations. The situation was chaotic, and indeed there were several cases of aggressive behavior, which we learned about from our foreign colleagues.”