NDRF in Turkey: A team of India's National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) on Thursday rescued a six-year-old girl from under the rubble in Gaziantep city of earthquake-hit Turkey. India has dispatched three teams of NDRF for search and rescue operations in Turkey, which has been hit by the worst earthquake in a century.
WATCH: Survivors Of Turkey Earthquake Are Living In Cars In Subzero Temperatures
In a tweet, the NDRF said that in a joint operation with Turkish Disaster and Emergency Management, the rescuers of the Indian disaster management team successfully rescued a child, Beren. She was rescued from Bolo Sokak Bahcelievler Mah eleven, Nurdagi, Gaziantep, the NDRF said while sharing a 10-second video.
Also read | Turkey earthquake: Scientists explain why country suffered extensive damage
Home Minister Amit Shah in a tweet said he was proud of the NDRF. "In the rescue operations in Türkiye, Team IND-11 saved the life of a six-year-old girl, Beren, in Gaziantep city. Under the guidance of PM @narendramodi, we are committed to making @NDRFHQ the world’s leading disaster response force. #OperationDost," he tweeted.
Ministry of Home Affairs spokesperson said that India was standing with Turkiye in this natural calamity. "India's @NDRFHQ is carrying out rescue and relief operations at ground zero. Team IND-11 successfully retrieved a 6-year-old girl from Nurdagi, Gaziantep today," the spokesperson said.
A strong earthquake of 7.8 magnitudes struck Turkey in the early hours of Monday, causing massive damage to properties and claiming thousands of lives in the country and neighbouring Syria. The quake brought down thousands of structures including hospitals and ripped roads into two parts.
A day after the earthquake, India launched "Operation Dost" to extend assistance to Turkiye as well as Syria. It sent two teams consisting of 101 personnel of NDRF along with specially trained dog squads to Türkiye by special Indian Air Force flights.
The NDRF is working to extricate live victims from under the rubble and providing first-aid to the injured, before handing them over to medical response authorities.
The force is using chip and stone cutters to breach fallen concrete slabs and other infrastructure and has deep radars that pick feeble sounds like the heartbeat or sound of a person, officials told the news agency PTI.
The teams on the ground have quick deploy antenna and satellite phones for communication. Seven four-wheeled vehicles and trucks, apart from four canines, were sent along the three teams that were airlifted by an Indian Air Force (IAF) C-17 heavy lift aircraft from the Hindon air base in Ghaziabad to the Adana airport in Turkiye.
(With inputs from PTI)