Spain will send search and rescue teams to Morocco after receiving a formal request for help from the Rabat government, Spanish Foreign Minister José Manuel Albares said on Sunday.
“It is a sign of Spanish solidarity and the feeling of friendship that unites the Spanish people with the Moroccan people,” the minister said during an interview with Radio Catalunya, adding that he received a call from his Moroccan counterpart asking for help in the early hours of this Sunday…
“It will initially be all the help that Morocco needs. We are deploying search and rescue teams because it is urgent to try to find as many people as possible alive among the rubble,” he stressed.
Albares did not provide further details, but an Interior Ministry spokesman said the government was preparing to “immediately” send 65 members of the Spanish Military Emergency Unit (UME) to assist in the search and rescue operation.
The UME is a body of the armed forces established to intervene quickly in emergency situations such as forest fires, floods and earthquakes.
According to the Spanish Ministry of Defense, a UME unit had already been sent to the devastating earthquake in Turkey in February, helping to save six people, including a mother and two children.
The worst earthquake to ever hit Morocco killed at least people and injured more than 2,059 people in 2012, many of whom were in critical condition, according to the latest official figures.
Source: DN
