Signi’s sniffer dog group from De Rips is back on Dutch soil. On the last night of their stay in Turkey, four more survivors were found under the rubble. That can be called a miracle, almost two weeks after the devastating earthquakes. Tracker dog Power and his owner Esther were assisted by, among others, Hennie van Selst, who could ‘see’ survivors with his thermal camera. “We were accosted by people who had lost their entire family.”
“It is almost impossible to describe,” says Hennie, less than 24 hours after he set foot on Dutch soil again. “We were in Hatay, a city of 250,000 people. But everything is in ruins. Everything is completely destroyed. Apartment complexes have sunk into the ground in no time. The lower floors have simply disappeared.” And it was precisely in those lower floors that most people lived. “All those people are under the rubble.”
“I wore the same clothes for a week.”
Hennie and Signi’s team went looking for those victims with sniffer dogs. Work continued day and night. “We worked non-stop for the first 36 hours,” says Hennie. “There was chaos, fatigue, and you just keep going. You can’t shower, I’ve been wearing the same clothes for a week.”
Searching for people who are still alive in a pile of rubble in which nothing can be recognized is like searching for a needle in a haystack. “We often received a location where someone had heard a sound, for example,” says Hennie. “There might have been survivors there.”
Then the team went for it. “First the dogs were used to indicate the location. And when that was known, I came with the thermal imager. See if there are temperature differences.”
A few degrees of temperature difference can already mean that someone is still under the rubble. “Sometimes they were just dead,” says Hennie realistically. Two weeks after the disaster, the chance of survivors was getting smaller by the minute. Still, hope was not given up. “We became more and more known to rescue workers there. There was more and more demand for the thermal imager.”
“He was digging out his family with his bare hands.”
Ordinary people also approached Hennie and the team. “We saw a man with a backpack rummaging through the rubble,” Hennie recalls. “He had lost his family. So I looked with the thermal camera and was able to point him: that’s where you should be. And then we saw him on his knees, digging out his family with his bare hands.”
Such images impress. Nevertheless, Hennie looks back on the mission with a good feeling. “I’m just glad I was able to do something for the people there.”
READ ALSO:
Brabant sniffer dog finds a living victim under the rubble after 11 days
Signi sniffer dogs have already found 40 bodies under the rubble in Turkey