The Polish search and rescue team HUSAR of the National Fire Service in the morning of Wednesday 8 February extracted a 13-year-old girl from under the rubble in the city of Besni, with a population of around 70,000. She is the 9th person rescued by Polish firefighters, who have been searching since Tuesday for people trapped under rubble following the earthquake in Turkey.

“At 5.51 of local time, the 9th person alive extracted (girl aged 13). Our group still in action. Another very good news story. Bravo”, wrote the Commander-in-Chief of the State Fire Service Andrzej Bartkowiak on Twitter. 

The commander of the HUSAR group, Brigadier Grzegorz Borowiec, told TVP info that operations were completed at night in the areas given the highest priority. 

“These are areas where we were sure we would find live people under the rubble. We are now proceeding to prioritise the next zones and start operations there”, Grzegorz Borowiec informed and added that Polish firefighters are the only foreign group conducting rescue operations in Besni.

The Polish firefighters arrived in Turkey on the night of Monday to Tuesday. “We arrived at around 2:35 a.m. local time, at the same time the Israelis, Algerians and Cypriots were landing. It took us about four hours to unload the plane”, said Andrzej Bartkowiak. 

The Polish group consisted of 76 firefighters from the National Fire Service and eight trained dogs. Five members of the Humanitarian-Medical Assistance Team (an anaesthetist, a nurse and three paramedics) travelled with the group. The firefighters from Poland took equipment to stabilise buildings, geophones, equipment to search for people, as well as food and water and everything necessary for the dogs taking part in the operation, so Turkish resources would not have to be used.

Adrian Andrzejewski