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THW deploys earthquake specialists to Turkey

On Tuesday night, a 50-strong team from the Technische Hilfswerk (THW) set off from Cologne Bonn Airport with 16 tonnes of equipment, heading for the affected province of Gaziantep in south-eastern Turkey. The operatives are members of the agency’s Rapid Deployment Unit Search and Rescue Abroad (SEEBA) – experts with specialist skills enabling them to locate and free buried survivors. “Our volunteers are specially trained for missions such as this in the wake of earthquakes. The team takes the technical equipment it needs to rescue people trapped under rubble,” explains THW President Gerd Friedsam. At the same time, the THW is preparing further deployment options that could provide assistance to the areas affected.

After several severe earthquakes struck the region of the border between Syria and Turkey on February 6, 2023, the THW has now deployed a SEEBA team. The plane carrying the team landed in the early hours of the morning at Gaziantep Airport with the operatives and four trained search and rescue dogs on board, as well as a total of 16 tonnes of materials, including acoustic search devices and technical rescue equipment. This all enables SEEBA to locate and rescue buried survivors quickly and efficiently. The THW SEEBA operatives in this team include volunteers from North Rhine-Westphalia, Hesse, Rhineland-Palatinate, Saarland and Bavaria. “We are in the first phase of the disaster. The focus at the moment is obviously on the rescue and initial treatment of the affected people, and that is exactly what our SEEBA unit is trained to do,” says THW President Gerd Friedsam.

Within this German technical relief agency, the SEEBA operatives are its specialists for search and rescue operations in areas affected by disasters such as earthquakes. Equipped with modern technology and trained rescue dogs, they can search for survivors. Members of the SEEBA unit are ready to deploy within hours of an alert. Their equipment is packed in light metal boxes so it can be transported in ordinary commercial aircraft. Past deployments of the SEEBA unit include one after the explosion in Beirut in 2020.

The THW has already started preparations for the next assistance to follow the acute SAR phase: “The focus will be on assisting survivors. Temperatures there are very low, so tents, sleeping bags and generators will be extremely important,” explains Friedsam.

Another THW unit ready for action is the Rapid Deployment Unit Water Supply Abroad (SEEWA), which has drinking water purification plants that can supply up to 30,000 people per day with clean water. If requested by the affected countries, the THW also sends support personnel specially trained to assist in providing vital co-ordination in the region. Their broad experience as advisors and consultants has proven useful in many international operations. If the appropriate request for assistance is received, the SEEWA unit is ready to deploy.

For operations abroad, the THW acts within the EU Civil Protection Mechanism, which maintains an overview of the available operational capacities and combined deployment options. When faced with a crisis, an affected country can issue a request for assistance to the EU, which then coordinates all the responses. This ensures the aid arrives quickly and well-coordinated.

You can find more pictures of the mission here: Mediathek.