“We do not have an exact estimate” of the people who are still trapped under the rubble, Ali Onaner, Turkey’s ambassador to France, explained on BFMTV on Wednesday. But given the thousands of buildings that have collapsed, “he worries us that the number of people who have lost their lives will increase,” with the discovery of more bodies.
The latest assessment of the deadly earthquakes that hit Syria and Turkey It already exceeds 11,000 deaths. But two days after the disaster, under the rubble, people are still alive and rescuers and volunteers are actively searching the scene.
“It’s a race against time,” says Éric Zipper, president of the NGO Corps Mondial de Secours, on our antenna from Turkey, still convinced that survivors will be found.
‘Very lucky’ to find survivors
“48 hours away we are still at the beginning,” he says, “we are in big collapses” but there are “many signs of life still inside.”
According to him, “there are many vacuum pockets” under the scree and in other earthquakes of this type, and “we still manage to find people, when they are walled up, who can survive another week or fifteen days.”
There are “still many possibilities” of pulling survivors out of the rubble in the coming days, Loïc Bargibant also assures. Head of the aid mission sent to Turkey by the Croix Blanche Federation of French rescuers, he heads to the disaster areas this Wednesday to help find survivors.
In China, a woman was found alive in 2008 under rubble nine days after an earthquake. In 2015, a 101-year-old man was pulled from the rubble eight days after an earthquake in Nepal. In 2010, after the earthquake in Haiti, a young man even survived up to 27 days buried.
Loïc Bargibant recalls, however, that “the first few hours are essential” in this type of situation.
“Many parameters can be reproduced”
In fact, it is very difficult to estimate how long a person trapped under a pile of rubble can survive. “There are many parameters that can come into play,” Marc Courtois of the National Federation of Firefighters tells BFMTV.com.
The life expectancy of a person who has not been injured and who is not compressed by rubble is therefore very different from that of someone whose leg has been broken in the earthquake or who is losing blood. The question of access to oxygen is also essential “and there is the problem of dehydration,” says Marc Courtois.
Not to mention that currently in the place, “the temperatures are cold, it hardly melts during the day, so they are not very favorable conditions for survival”, specifies Éric Zipper.
In this sense, “it is very important to try to have results in the hours that follow in order to save as many lives as possible,” supported Ambassador Ali Onaner.
How to detect the survivors?
To search for these survivors, each rescue team is assigned a sector in which to operate. The area is initially insured, to prevent new landslides on already weakened structures. “We also find out if there are witnesses,” says Loïc Bargibant, to find out how many people may be under the rubble, how many have already been removed.
French firefighters sent to the scene, as well as rescuers from the White Cross, then use trained dogs to search for people, “they are able to detect someone in 10 minutes”, even if the individual is unconscious, Loïc Bargibant points out.
Then listening means are used to see if we hear the presence of someone and it is also possible “to use cameras that can be sent to the smallest corner”, says Marc Courtois.
Although “we prioritize the places and buildings where we hear noise” at the beginning of the investigation, “we never leave a building unrecognized,” he says.
If a person is still alive, clearing it is also particularly delicate, because unstable rubble must be moved carefully, to avoid a new rockfall that could harm the person saved, other buried victims or even the rescuers themselves. .
Despite these difficult conditions, “there is always hope of finding people, we always keep hope”, says Marc Courtois, because sometimes “we manage to work miracles”.
Source: BFM TV
