SINGAPORE, Feb 9 – Three rescue teams, including a Singapore advance team, rescued a boy from a bedroom in a collapsed building in Dulkadiroğlu, Kahramanmaraş, Türkiye in rescue efforts following the deadly earthquake on Monday.
The advance team of 20 Singapore Civil Defence Force (SCDF) officers from the Operation Lionheart (OLH) contingent, which landed in Adana on Wednesday (Feb 8), headed to Dulkadiroğlu, to begin search and rescue operations.
The rescue operation that saved the young boy, whose age was not disclosed, was shared on SCDF’s official Facebook page, along with video footage and images.
In the course of the search and rescue operations amidst the cold weather of about 2℃, SCDF said the boy was found in a collapsed three-storey building.
SCDF worked together with the local rescue team and a rescue team from Spain to rescue the boy.
The Spanish rescue team used their search canine to pinpoint the location of the boy and SCDF used a fibre-optic scope to confirm the visuals of the boy.
All three rescue teams used their cutting and breaking equipment to create an access through the rubble to reach the boy.
The boy was rescued at about 11:45 pm Wednesday (4.45 am Thursday (Feb 9), Singapore time) in a three-hour rescue operation, it said.
According to SCDF, Singapore is currently preparing to deploy a second team to Türkiye.
An additional 48 SCDF personnel have started preparations for deployment to Türkiye to augment the 20-member advance team.
These personnel are expected to leave Singapore within the next 48 hours, it said.
Led by Contingent Commander Colonel Chew Keng Tok, the entire 68-member contingent will comprise officers from the elite Disaster Assistance and Rescue Team (DART), operations officers, medical doctors, paramedics, search specialists with four canines, hazardous materials assessment officers and support officers.
With the 68 personnel complement, this will give the OLH contingent greater scope, scale, and capacity to carry out more sustained and prolonged Urban Search and Rescue (USAR) operations within affected areas.
This is the 20th OLH overseas deployment since 1990, said SCDF.
A strong earthquake, with a magnitude of 7.8 on the Richter scale, hit southern Turkiye and northwestern Syria on Monday (Feb 6), claiming thousands of lives in both countries.
