The reception of the Greek rescue mission in Eleftherios Venizelos was particularly emotional

Those present upon their arrival from Turkey at the Eleftherios Venizelos airport welcomed the Greek rescue mission with applause and in an atmosphere of special emotion. The Greek rescue mission that had been in Turkey for almost a week returned to Greece just before 23:00. The mission was welcomed at the airport by the political leadership of the Ministry of Climate Crisis and Civil Protection, the Minister of Health, Thanos Pleuris, the chief of the Fire Brigade as well as members of the EKAV.

The Minister of Climate Crisis and Civil Protection, Christos Stylianidis, spoke of a great and moving moment during the reception of the mission. The minister emphasized that these people “honored the Greek colors” and sent the message everywhere “that Greece was present there in this moment of humanity”. “With their act, they defined what solidarity means. They defined solidarity in practice with their humanity”, said Mr. Stylianidis and added that they feel proud of all of them. As the minister said, the members of the mission, “from the first night they tried and proved their professionalism, their dedication and their self-sacrifice”.

“We are all here to welcome our heroes. Fortunately they are all back safe and ready to go kiss their children and their families. It was a big bet, because you all saw the aftershocks and you know what it means for someone to act under this Damocles sword of an aftershock in such conditions”, noted Mr. Stylianidis, adding that both from foreign correspondents, as well as from the Turkish authorities and earthquake victims heard the best words about the work of the Greek mission. “Everyone was looking for the Greek rescuers to take them to their own people and try. Such reliability included this body. EMAK, EKAV, the whole team”, said the minister and announced that on Thursday morning at the Maximos Palace, the prime minister will hold a special ceremony for the members of the mission to express, as Mr. Stylianidis mentioned, “his great thanks state, the great thanks of the Greek people to our heroes”.

The Minister of Health, Thanos Pleuris, expressed his pride for the entire mission and his thanks for what they did. “The group was one, it was from EMAK, from KEPY-EKAV, the Ministry of Civil Protection and the Ministry of Health. These people have made us all proud, they moved us with the solidarity and humanity they showed. I want to thank them from the bottom of my heart, they made us proud everywhere and proved that solidarity and humanity always wins even in these difficult moments”, emphasized Mr. Pleuris.

“When a man feels pain it means he is alive. When he feels the pain of another, it means he is human.” With this phrase of Nikos Kazantzakis, he wanted to summarize the philosophy of his colleagues, the head of the Fire Department, Lieutenant General Georgios Pournaras, expressing at the same time his thanks and his deep gratitude for the work accomplished in Turkey by the Greek rescue mission. As Mr. Pournaras said, the PS executives who attempted in Turkey proved above all “that they are human first and then genuine and proper professionals”. “As the chief of the Fire Department, on behalf of all the staff we send them a big thank you and I feel deep gratitude for the work they did in the country of Turkey. And I am given the opportunity to say that not only the executives who passed down, but every day all the personnel of the Fire Department give a huge fight for the protection and life of our fellow citizens and their property, and for that I am grateful to them. Let the Greek people feel that we are always by their side in whatever they need,” he said.

“We did what we would do in our homeland. We did nothing more, nothing less than what we would have done in our homeland”, underlined the head of the 1st EMAK, adjutant, Dimitris Roupas, upon his arrival at the Eleftherios Venizelos airport. As he pointed out, the most important thing is that the Greek delegation is back and they are all healthy. “This is a very big disaster, we all wanted to help them. We managed it, we didn’t stop, we were in the field 24 hours a day. There were too many trapped. When you arrive from the first groups the problems are too many and too big. As the days pass, the problems diminish. We had a lot to manage, our transport, closed roads, communications. Nevertheless, we managed, the locals helped us a lot and everything went well”, he noted. As he pointed out, the most touching moment they experienced was their agonizing and painstaking efforts to free little Fatma, who eventually died, but they succeeded and saved her little sister.

“We did nothing less than what EKAV does every day. The only thing that changed was the degree of difficulty, which was definitely different. I believe that many things will be said in the coming days, they will clarify situations, we are all present”, pointed out the head of the KEPY-EKAB mission in Turkey, Sokratis Doukas.

The members of the Greek mission are returning to Greece from Turkey with luggage full of rich operational, rescue, humanitarian, scientific and technical work, as said by the president of OASP, Professor Efthymis Lekkas. “The Greek firefighters, the EMAK and the EKAB show the way we must follow”, he noted and made it clear that the specific earthquake and the specific fault that was activated in Southern Turkey does not affect the Greek area in any way. “We don’t have the northern Anatolia fault that passes through Istanbul that was triggered, we have a fault that is 500 km away from the Istanbul fault. Therefore, any correlation between the rift that was activated and the Greek area is incorrect”, stressed Mr. Lekkas. As he said, based on a quick autopsy they did in the entire affected area, which has dimensions of 600 km by 40 km, they found that the structures that collapsed amounted to about 200 thousand.

“According to calculations the victims will exceed 50,000 and the affected population is approximately 2.5 million. This creates huge social problems and it is a challenge that is ahead for Turkey, it is a very difficult equation that will have to be solved in the next few days because 2 million people have lost everything”, he concluded.

At the airport were among others the Minister of Climate Crisis and Civil Protection, Christos Stylianidis, the Minister of Health, Thanos Pleuris, the Deputy Minister of Climate Crisis and Civil Protection, Evangelos Tournas, the Secretary General of Civil Protection, Vassilis Papageorgiou, the Chief of the Fire Brigade, Lieutenant General , Georgios Pournaras, the head of the operations branch of the Fire Brigade headquarters, Lieutenant General Athanasios Balafas, as well as the director of Medical Services of the EKAV, Dimitris Pyrros.

At the same time, the C-130 military aircraft that transported the equipment and vehicles also arrived in Greece.

It is noted that the mission consisted of 36 officers of the 1st and 2nd EMAK, (21 from the 1st EMAK and 15 from the 2nd EMAK), two officers – engineers of the Fire Brigade with expertise in the underpinning of collapsed building ruins, 8 doctors and rescuers of EKAB, three rescue dogs and three special rescue vehicles, as well as the president of the OASP, professor Efthymis Lekkas.

RES-EMP

Read the News today and get the latest news.
Follow Skai.gr on Google News and be the first to know all the news.