Spanish firefighters from non-governmental organizations (NGOs) specialized in disaster rescue have begun to leave Morocco, admitting the impossibility of finding survivors of last Friday’s earthquake and stressing that now is the time for humanitarian aid.
Three days after arriving in Morocco, members of Firefighters United Without Borders (BUSF) decided to return to Spain on Wednesday night because “most of the groups were no longer doing anything,” said the NGO’s president, Antonio Nogales. , it’s a statement. to the EFE news agency.
Nogales revealed that the NGO teams return to Spain “with the certainty that no living people will appear” in the midst of the destruction left by the earthquake, which caused 2,946 deaths and 5,674 injuries, according to the latest report from the Moroccan Government.
“Our work is finished,” he stressed, adding that “from now on other types of risks will begin, such as epidemics caused by decomposition.” [de cadáveres]”and, furthermore, families “want to bury their relatives and that is why they want to start installing heavy machinery.” [nos escombros] to speed up everything.”
Dozens of firefighters from Spanish NGOs, with experience in disaster scenarios around the world, traveled to Morocco after last Friday’s earthquake and, like BUSF, others are leaving the country, after days without finding survivors.
“They are quite difficult jobs because the constructions are very unstable and have an adobe base and very light materials. Sometimes they have reinforced concrete on top, so even those that seem most stable end up falling, since adobe does not have much structural structure “. stability,” Annika Coll, from the Emergency and Immediate Response Service of the Community of Madrid (ERICAM), wrote on the social network X (formerly Twitter).
“There is a very high degree of devastation,” confirmed Jair Pereira, from the NGO Firefighters for the World, who explained to Efe that the type of construction makes it practically impossible for people to survive under the rubble of the adobe buildings, which quickly crumble. . and leave no room for air pockets when falling.
Jair Pereira, who spoke to Efe this Thursday, already back in Spain, highlighted that among the rubble of the Moroccan earthquake “there are no spaces to breathe, there are no spaces to survive and the people were left there, as if buried alive.”
“It’s very hard,” he added.
Several days after the earthquake, the emergency changed and the priority is now no longer searching and rescuing trapped people, but rather humanitarian aid to survivors.
“We are leaving to make way for these new people who provide such important help,” said Jair Pereira.
This firefighter, like others cited by the Spanish media, highlighted the good reception by the local population and stated that the coordination of the rescue teams on the ground is good.
Francis Martínez and four other firefighters from Granada, in the south of Spain, headed to Morocco on Monday, on their own initiative, without joining any organization, taking material from the fire department of the city where they live.
They went to a command post and from there they went out to the countryside and what they saw was that, three days after the earthquake, the towns “had already fixed themselves.”
“They themselves had removed their dead, they had already buried their relatives and they had rescued the trapped people alive,” he stated, specifying that the group collaborated mainly in tasks of transferring the injured to places where they could be transferred by helicopter to the hospital. .
Another firefighter from a Spanish NGO, Antonio Caballero, told the newspaper A Voz de Córdoba that although no survivors were found, finding and removing bodies, “in a situation like the one we are experiencing in Morocco, is also important, because it allows them to introduce machines to remove waste and thus avoid possible epidemics”.
After the earthquake, Morocco only accepted aid from four countries (Spain, the United Kingdom, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar).
The Spanish Government sent 56 members of the Military Emergency Unit to Morocco, with four dogs, who will remain in the country “as long as necessary,” Defense Minister Margarita Robles said today.
The army team arrived before the NGO firefighters and managed to rescue a dozen people alive from the rubble, according to reports published by Spanish media.
In those first hours, rescues could be carried out because “people were buried superficially,” but later “no one else managed,” in the words of firefighter Jair Pereira.
After Morocco, Spanish NGOs specialized in rescue, such as Firefighters Without Borders, are now heading to Libya, where the floods this week caused more than 6,870 deaths and 10,000 missing, according to updated reports from the Libyan authorities.
A local mayor admitted, however, that the death toll could rise to 20,000.
Source: TSF
