Amidst the heartbreak of loss and death, sudden miracles keep hope alive in the search and rescue teams currently engaged in earthquake-hit Turkey. One such miracle was the discovery of a six-year-old girl, alive, in Noordagi, Turkey, 80 hours after a series of earthquakes, beginning with a massive one on February 6 which measured 7.8 on the Richter Scale, devastated the region last week. For the India’s National Disaster Response Force team that was deployed in the city as part of Operation Dost, the girl’s successful rescue was the “crowning moment” of their efforts, made possible by Julie, a six-year-old labrador.
Julie is one of the four dogs accompanying the 151 NDRF personnel of Operation Dost in Turkey. It was her bark that alerted the team to the presence of six-year-old Beren under the rubble. Dogs like her are specially trained to sniff out live human presence under massive piles of rubble as well as find the dead. NDRF’s dogs have been instrumental in several rescues around the country, when buildings or other structures have collapsed and in fires, and were also used in Nepal after it was hit by a massive earthquake in 2015. In Turkey, dog teams from around the world have been flown in to help, including from Mexico, whose specialised canine response team, used for operations in the central American earthquake-prone zone, shot to international fame thanks to its work after the 2017 Puebla earthquake.
Dogs are key to the success of rescue operations such as the one going on in Turkey, especially as the hours pass and hopes of finding people alive in the rubble grow dimmer. As a tweet by NDRF put it, having a dog “will bless you with many of the happiest days of your life” — and it will also be a blessing on “one of the worst”.
