VIDEO. A Turkish volunteer rescuer shows the reality on the ground

“As we enter the second week, the needs in the disaster area of ​​the region have changed a lot. Today, housing, heating, health, protection against epidemics, such as cholera and diarrhea, are the priority.“Two weeks after the two dramatic earthquakes that hit Turkey and Syria, relief is getting organized to help the victims. Alp Sanalan is one of them. He is a volunteer first aider for the NGO Yüdak. “Generally speaking, the times I spent in the earthquake zone, in the disaster zone, felt like this. There is no electricity, the roads are messy. A field hospital was built. At the moment, there are no toilets on the grounds. There is no food worthy of the name”, he explains.

“Long-term needs appear”

For the rescuer, the needs change rapidly. “There is really a gap between the needs of the first days and the days following the earthquake. Initially, extensive interventions by teams, generators, site tools, light work tools were needed. While from the second day, excavators, diggers, cranes come into play and, on the ground, more and more needs related to shelter and warmth, long-term needs appear.”

“These are not the needs that we can meet as first aid. Our primary objective is to get to the field as quickly as possible as a light search and rescue team, equipped with all our equipment, to remove the most accessible people as quickly as possible and to move on to the next rockslide.”, adds Alp Sanalan.