A call, three blows and the crying of a child, keys in the 'miracle' rescue of the EMU in Turkey

A first sergeant of the military unit tells Europa Press the nine days of the Spanish military in Turkey

MADRID, 19 Feb. (EUROPA PRESS) -

Three blows were what allowed First Sergeant Mario Rivero and his team from the Military Emergency Unit (UME) to discover that at least one person was still alive under the rubble 72 hours after an earthquake measuring 7.4 on the scale of Richter would shake the provinces of southeastern Turkey and northern Syria.

Three days before that sound of "hope", a total of 55 EMU troops had landed in Turkey ready to help search and rescue the victims of the earthquake. After a complicated trip as a result of the collapse of the country, the Spanish military managed to reach the affected area when two days had not yet passed since the earthquake.

"We had not exceeded 48 hours and there was the possibility of finding people alive," First Sergeant Rivero told Europa Press, who together with the rest of the UME members rushed to set up a small camp and unload the material. to start looking through the rubble as soon as possible.

The first impression recognizes that it was "desolate", with dozens of bonfires lit in the streets at dawn and hundreds of buildings collapsed. "As soon as we were able to access the material, we began the work to try to locate the living," he recalls.

That same afternoon, the members of the EMU were able to collaborate with a Turkish rescue team in the rescue of a young woman trapped in the rubble with a beam stuck in her leg. The medical lieutenant Lara managed to place a tourniquet on her that saved her life and the rest of the members of the UME, together with the Turks, managed to get the girl out alive.

However, the high point of the mission came on Thursday with a call. They were warned that there was a possibility of finding people alive under a collapsed building in the town of Nurdagui. Turkish media had managed to contact the mobile phone of someone who was allegedly resisting under the rubble.

When First Sergeant Rivero and his team arrived at the scene, the first thing they did was place the geophones, an ultrasonic device capable of detecting any alteration translated into an electrical signal.

After getting silence around, the Turkish teams made a call to the victim and asked him to give three blows to try to locate her. Three hits undetectable to the human ear but not to geophones. Three blows that saved the life of a woman and hers, two of her children, as the Spanish soldier recalls.

Little by little, the devices managed to pinpoint the location and a rescue operation began there that lasted for 27 hours. "As we got closer we could begin to hear the blows without devices, then we were able to communicate and he told us that he was with his two children," she explains.

At this moment, despite the concentration that dominates his work, the first sergeant of the UME admits that it is difficult to control emotion. "Most of the team have children. Every time we heard the child cry it broke our souls," he confesses.

The rescue efforts went on like this for hours until they managed to free the three alive. First it was Muslim, just two years old, then his six-year-old sister Elif and shortly after his mother, Leyla. All of them were transferred to the hospital, where the members of the UME were able to visit them the next day.

Upon his return to Spain, First Sergeant Rivero acknowledges that "joy" for these rescues is mixed with the frustration of not having been able to do more and remembering all the people who have been trapped under the collapsed buildings.

However, the EMU has not been alone in this task. Four Navy ships -- the 'Juan Carlos I', the 'Galicia', the 'Blas de Lezo' and the 'Cantabria'-- were sailing through the Mediterranean when the earthquake occurred and diverted their course to join the search and rescue tasks.

Marines worked tirelessly at four Turkish locations searching for survivors, distributing 3,600 tons of aid, and distributing 40 tons of their own stocks of bottled water and food through government agencies and NGOs, in addition to assembling of five camps for victims, according to data provided by the Ministry of Defense to Europa Press.

These members of the elite unit of the Navy were also able to participate in the rescue alive of a seven-year-old boy and a 70-year-old adult on the fifth and sixth days of the earthquake, when hopes were already beginning to fade.

They were joined by the hundred Spanish soldiers who are part of the 'Adana' contingent, a deployment that has been in Turkey since 2014 with an anti-missile battery. Despite its proximity to the earthquake zone, the earthquake did not cause damage to the Spanish contingent, which immediately joined the relief efforts.

Specifically, they were in charge of the logistical tasks for the accommodation of the members of the UME and other Spanish emergency teams, the transfer through Turkish soil, support for the distribution of food or unloading of material.