Around 70 members of the UK International Search and Rescue Team have arrived in Turkey to assist with the search operation as the death toll from the 7.8 magnitude earthquake approached 15,000. The team of volunteers, which included firefighters, medics, engineers and vets, was joined by crews from at least 24 countries.
UK International Search and Rescue team coordinator Mark Davey said it had taken a lot of organisation to get to Antakya, in the Hatay province, due to the amount of destruction caused to basic infrastructure.
“Transportation is very difficult here, so it took a lot of organisation to get enough vehicles to bring us,” he told the Associated Press. “It took a long while to get a lot of the equipment over here on the vehicles, on buses. (We had) a lot of help from the local people as well – from bus companies.”
