Vietnam’s rescue team discovers 15 sites with quake victims in Turkey so far

Members of the VPA team search a location in Antakya, the capital of Turkish's Hatay province, on February 19. (Photo: VNA)

Hatay (VNA) – The rescueteam from the Vietnam People’s Army (VPA), in coordination with Turkishauthorities, continued searching for earthquake victims in Hatay province onFebruary 19.

The team operated at some locationsin Cebrail commune of Antakya, the capital of Hatay.

At each location, they discussed searchplans with the local rescue force and then utilised sniffer dogs and sapper equipmentto search the places where there were possibly victims under the rubble.

Among those places, they detected a dead victim inside a collapsed building and then handed over the site tolocal rescuers to pull the body out.

The VPA team searches for earthquake victims in Antakya on February 19. (Photo: VNA)

As of February 19 evening (Vietnamtime), the VPA team had searched 31 locations in Antakya, helping discover 15sites with victims trapped under the rubble, including two places with signs ofsurvivors. They handed over the sites to the local rescue force to bring 28dead bodies out.

During that process, they coordinatedwith the Bahraini team to find out one site with eight corpses and with theMexican team to find out two other places with victims.

Besides, the Vietnamese team has alsoassisted three families to move household goods out of the rubble.

As of late February 19, the7.8-magnitude earthquake in Turkey and the neighbouring Syria had killed morethan 46,000 people, including nearly 40,700 in Turkey./.

VNA