Reporting: Makis Synodinos

The men of EMAK who attempted in Turkey saving 5 human lives under the ruins are giving a press conference at this time.

The Greek search and rescue team was flown to Adana and from there by road to Antioch (Hatai)

– Epipyragos Yiannopoulos: We arrived first at the point of greatest destruction and became the first coordination center for the international forces, together with the Swiss.

– Pyragos Nikas Konstantinos: In the first days of the rescue we operated with information from the locals in an extremely dangerous working environment.

“We moved with specific information and threw our forces at confirmed survivors. That’s how the first days of the rescue went, and then when the International Coordination Center was activated, the information came through it.”

– For front page Hurriyet “thank you very much friend”: Confirms the behavior and attitude of Turkish citizens. They trusted us because they understood that we do not discriminate.

The moments that marked the team

The men of EMAK, often smiling, moved, referred to the moments that will remain in their memory forever

“We were shocked by the voices of the buried alive, which then stopped and we were anxious to hear them again.”

“Long and complicated rescue of 20-year-old Irene on the second day, the girl who even asked to have her leg amputated to free her.”

“On the 8th of the month, we had found an 8-year-old boy alive, parallel to the rescue operation of the 6-year-old girl, we were giving him water and he was reminding us that he was at 10%, that he couldn’t take it anymore…”

“In the midst of the destruction, a little boy came and gave us a box of cookies.”

“We were working at the same time in 4 places”

“Although the goal is to try to retrieve alive trapped people in the first 72 hours, we did not stop searches and efforts until the last moment.”

“Although in these cases each team works on one spot, on the first day we broke and worked on 4 spots at the same time, switching positions between us.”

“We were not hindered by the aftershocks, we had secured the field where we were working – under ceilings, beams, etc. We are trained to reduce the risk of danger both for us and for those trapped.”