French rescuers in the heart of chaos for seven days

Here, the earth shook for 1 minute and 35 seconds. Philippe and his team are plunged into the heart of the chaos. After seven hours, an 11-year-old girl is freed from her collapsed apartment. “We still had access to the hands, we could communicate with his head, but the whole body was stuck, so we managed to infuse it”, describes Charlotte Coopmann, nurse. The 7.5 magnitude tremor mowed down this city of half a million people. An eight-story building is reduced to rubble. But three days after the earthquake, there is still hope of finding a loved one alive.

hard knocks

French fire service dogs detect signs of life. “There we are sure”, said one of the firefighters. Quickly, they understand that only one of the two victims is still alive, the father. Her son arrives, but they can’t knock down the wall the person is under. This failure is a blow, there will be others. The same evening, the French are called by the Turkish rescuers. They are trying to free a 64-year-old woman, buried in her shop. The French firefighters stayed seven days in this city, before the search was stopped, decided by the Turkish authorities. They managed to save two people.