YEREVAN, FEBRUARY 20, ARMENPRESS. Lieutenant colonel Garik Aghramanyan, Chief of the Operational Shift at the National Center of Crisis Management delivered a briefing on the Armenian search and rescue (SAR) operations carried out in quake-hit Turkey and Syria .

He said that the urban SAR teams from Armenia were deployed to Turkey and Syria on February 8.

A 27-strong team was sent to Turkey and a 29-strong team to Syria.

The SAR teams included doctors, K9 specialists, experts of radiation, chemical and biological situation monitoring. The teams were equipped with food, water, tents, equipment and other devices for 7-day self-sustainable operations.

“The Armenian rescuers set up their deployment site in the Turkish city of Adiyaman and in the Syrian city of Aleppo. As a result of the one-week search and rescue operations in the disaster zone, in cooperation with the local assisting teams and other international teams, the internationally-qualified Armenian SAR teams pulled three survivors from the rubble in the disaster zone in Turkey with the use of various rescue measures. As a result of the large-scale search work, including with search and rescue K9 teams, 20 bodies were retrieved from the rubble in the two countries. In Aleppo, alongside the search and rescue operations, the Armenian rescuers organized a training course for the local Armenian community titled What to Do During an Earthquake on safety measures during earthquakes,” Rescue Service Lieutenant colonel Garik Aghramanyan said.

Asked how they were treated in Turkey, the rescuers said that they were treated very positively. 

“They were treating us very good, they were thanking us for arriving to help them. There were words of gratitude from the first moment we exited the aircraft,” Aghramanyan said.