Portugal will send a team of 53 people “in the coming hours” to assist with search and rescue efforts in Turkey, Interior Minister José Luís Carneiro announced on Tuesday.
“In the coming hours, a team of 53 elements, consisting of elements of the National Emergency and Civil Protection Authority, elements of the GNR Emergency Protection and Help Unit and also elements of the emergency medical service, will leave our country to join the European reinforcements of a humanitarian nature, civil protection and, very particularly, in the case of Portuguese support, in the context of search and rescue operations,” said the official in Coimbra.
The group sent by Portugal includes “cynotechnical teams”, with dogs specialized in rescues, and also “other dimensions, namely in the context of what search and rescue operations are, namely in terms of removing structures and also detecting associated risks for what replicates are that often happens at these times, under these circumstances”.
José Luís Carneiro deplored the “such tragic circumstances that the Turkish people and also the Syrian people are going through” and said the information available to the government at the end of the day on Monday was that “there were no Portuguese in danger in Turkey”. .
“Citizens had been identified in the region, who were given the respective follow-up and who were in dialogue with the Emergency Relief and Consular Protection Office,” explained the minister, who referred more details about the contact with the Portuguese in Turkey to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
The preliminary balance of Monday’s earthquakes in Turkey and Syria has risen to more than 5,000 dead as rescue operations are carried out under the rubble of destroyed buildings in both countries.
Turkish Vice President Fuat Oktay said today that the death toll on Turkish territory has risen to 3,419 and 20,534 people have been injured.
The latest information from the Turkish vice president raises the number of fatalities in the two countries combined to 5,021, as Syria confirmed the deaths of 1,602 people today.
The quakes, the largest at 7.8 on the Richter scale, toppled thousands of buildings in southern Turkey and northern Syria.
Rescue teams remain in the affected places and the work is complicated by the low temperatures in the region.
Source: DN
