Interview: "We are trying to save as many as live victims from debris" in Nepal

Kadir ErKan, coordinator of GEA Search and Rescue Team - Turkey, said here that his team had been trying its best to save as many as live victims from the debris since they arrived in quake-stricken Nepal two days ago.

A earthquake of 7.9-magnitude jolted Nepal at midday on Saturday which has killed 4, 355 people and injured 8,065 in the country, the Home Ministry said Tuesday. It has also caused property damages worth billions of U.S. dollars.

In an interview with Xinhua on Monday, Erkan said after being taken to the disaster affected areas in the capital by the military after arrival, they immediately started to access the damaged and collapsed buildings.

"After collapsed buildings be accessed, we just received live victim signals from the debris. We started to rescue them. After working 6 hours, three o'clock in the morning, we saved him under the debris."

Erkan's search and rescue team has 13 members. They come from Istanbul, Turkey. They have been working more than 20 years as a search and rescue business and have participated in more than 30 operations all around the world.

"We are here and we are trying to access the buildings and the most affected areas in Katmandu and we will try to save as many as live victims from the debris. The search and rescue teams told that these are golden hours, first 72 hours is a golden hour because in this 72 hours, most victims can survive. This is why we are hurry to work because after 72 hours it gets difficult to rescue the people from the debris."

On the difficulties facing his team, the coordinator said they are the bricks and most of old buildings are produced by the bricks.

"The bricks building collapsed and it's very difficult to use the machines and you have to take all the bricks one by one from the debris and the bricks construction is not like complete constructions. Because complete constructions when damaged can have some spare and some empty spaces in these buildings and the victims can survive in these empty space but in the bricks and in mud buildings, there are no empty spaces when the buildings collapsed so it is difficult to survive under such buildings."

As many search and rescue teams, both international and local, are try to get access to the epicenter of the quake, Erkan said his team would rather stay in the capital for the humanitarian mission.

"... we want to access but they said that the most affected area is Kathmandu. Because out of the valley, the buildings are so small of bricks or mud and people can survive themselves and they are not in urgent need for the technical rescue operations over there and our capability is technical rescue operation and our team need to be here, should be here in Katmandu," he added.

GEA is formed of volunteers acting with citizenship consciousness. Endi