Thailand deploying 20-member Urban Search & Rescue team to Turkey
Thailand will deploy a 20-member Urban Search and Rescue (USAR) team to the disaster zone of major earthquakes that hit Turkey and Syria on Monday.
The Department of Disaster Prevention and Mitigation said on Tuesday that 20 fully equipped members of USAR Thailand are on standby and will depart as soon as they get the green light from Turkish authorities.
USAR Thailand team members are trained experts with experience in search and rescue operations in large-scale disasters at both national and international levels.
A magnitude 7.8 quake hit Karamanmaras province near the Turkey-Syria border, about 600 kilometres east of the Turkish capital Ankara, at 4.17am local time (8.17am Thai time) on Monday.
The pre-dawn quake collapsed buildings and rippled around the Mediterranean rim through Cyprus and Lebanon. It was followed in the early afternoon by another large magnitude 7.7 earthquake centred on Gaziantep province, Turkey’s industrial hub.
The death toll from the two quakes had surpassed 4,300 as of 9am Thai time on Tuesday. Turkish authorities were reporting 2,921 fatalities and Syria had recorded 1,444, bringing the total to 4,365 deaths.
The United Nations humanitarian agency said on Tuesday that 78 aftershocks have been reported as over 1,150 rescuers comb more than 2,800 collapsed buildings for signs of survivors.
There were no initial reports of Thais injured or killed in the earthquakes, which struck several hundred kilometres away from Thai communities in Istanbul and Ankara.
The Thai Foreign Ministry said Thais affected by the disaster can contact the Royal Thai Embassy in Ankara for help at +90 (533) 641 5698 and facebook.com/rteankara/.
