Bulgarian Team of the National Association of Volunteers is in the Turkish city of Kahramanmaras and is Helping

Incidents | February 9, 2023, Thursday // 11:00| views

Kahramanmaras, Turkey

The team of 27 people of the National Association of Volunteers in the Republic of Bulgaria (NADRB) is already in the Turkish city of Kahramanmaras and working in the field. This is what the head of the group, Georgi Vlaikov, said for BTA. The volunteers went to the earthquake-affected area on February 7 with two off-road jeeps, one of which is an off-road ambulance, emergency medical transport equipment, generators and rescue equipment.

“We arrived after 32 hours of driving in huge traffic jams because there are many people traveling to the affected areas to help,” Vlaikov said. According to him, logistically this is a big problem, because there is no fuel, food and water on the road, the gas stations are empty. The team arrived late last night in Kahramanmaras, set up camp and immediately put an operational team to work in the field. “We were in a six-story collapsed building with only the roof visible,” the volunteer pointed out. In the block of 35 apartments, 20 were inhabited. During the initial search, they found two people alive and two victims of the earthquake. "We searched with a high-sensitivity seismic microphone, which is used in such cases. We tried in places where the locals said they heard sounds, but we didn't find anything," added Vlaikov. The team worked until 5 a.m. in the morning, they rested a little and at any moment they expect to be directed to where they will work today. “At the moment it is minus 6 degrees Celsius in my tent, we were woken up by an aftershock half an hour ago,” noted Vlaikov.

The city of Kahramanmaras, with a population of over one million people, is the sixteenth largest in the country, the administrative center of the vilayet of the same name, Kahramanmaras. “People are working around the clock, everyone is at the end of their strength and very exhausted,” said Vlaikov. He described that people are in tents provided by the government, there are also those who live in the entrances of housing cooperatives. There are fires lit everywhere in the city, all kinds of things are burning to keep warm, the volunteer added. According to him, there are many foreign teams working in different places. “We have been assigned two boys who speak English, they even sleep with us,” explained the volunteer. A donor has sent them an empty bus that they will use as a base. The same person will also bring them several barrels of fuel from Ankara, because the supply of fuel is a problem in the affected region.

On the website of the association "National Association of Volunteers in the Republic of Bulgaria" a bank account has been published for raising funds to ensure the stay of the volunteers in Turkey.