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A County Down canine search and rescue team have been in Turkey since last Friday assisting with the search effort, following last weeks devestating earthquakes in Syria and Turkey. They are totally self funded and appreciate all donations via their goFundme page (details below)
K9 Search & Rescue NI sent 2 of their highly trained Urban Search and Rescue dogs Max and Delta, along with their handlers Ryan Gray and Kyle Murray to the area following a request to assist by the Turkish Government.
Working day and night the team are continuing today amid the devestation all around. The sheer scale of the tragedy is impossible to comprehend. Many people have been rescued from the ruins of collapsed building with one found alive after being trapped for over 200 hours. As time goes on though, hope fades. The death toll has already passed 40,000 with the grim possibility that it will be much larger.
To give an idea of the challenges they face here is a post from yesterday on their facebook page "Early this morning, before breakfast we were called to a site where it was believed people may still be alive. Three Search and Rescue Dogs were put to to work. Two from our team and one from SAR Team. All three dogs alerted people to be under the rubble. Digging continued and the dogs were brought back in as rubble was removed, to continue narrowing down the area.
"A Chinese Search and Rescue team arrived onsite with a state of the art device that detects heart beats, under rubble. That machine confirmed a heart beat, a distance and direction. Colleagues from Serve On and Evolsar assisted in breaking and breaching the concrete to gain access to those trapped. We had to depart the site at 1630 local time, how ever have just received word that work is underway to resue six people including a 2 year old boy and a 3 year old girl, brother and sister."
The group are trying to raise funds to prolong their mission as much as possible. K9 Search & Rescue is completely self funded and relies on donations from members of the public in order to fund their vital and selfless work.
You can donate to K9 Search & Rescue via their Go Fund Me Page at k9-search-rescue-ni
Check out their facebook page for updates of their work at K9SARNI
