At the heart of an unimaginable tragedy in Turkey, a few lives are hanging on against the odds. Buried in the rubble of collapsed buildings, survivors are still there hoping to be rescued - and a team including firefighters from Swansea and Haverfordwest is out there saving them.
The United Kingdom International Search and Rescue Team (UK ISAR) is a 77-strong team of firefighters from across the UK who volunteer to travel to the scenes of international disasters at the drop of the hat. On Monday, they got the call: "you're going to Turkey, to help rescue people from a devastating earthquake" -one which has since claimed 24,000 lives.
"There is no typical day, but there is a typical ISAR technician who will work to find solutions to problems," says Phil Irving, usually a watch manager in Haverfordwest. "It’s that attitude which makes us one of the leading teams in the world… that’s not arrogant, I’m just proud to be a member of it. The tenacity to rescue people, give them compassion and try and alleviate their trauma is profound."
READ MORE: The Welsh Turkish community fundraising to help victims of the earthquake
Phil and his colleague Steve Davies (the deputy team leader of UK ISAR) are talking to WalesOnline on a mobile phone during a moment of quiet in their work in the Hatay Province of south east Turkey. Both have been part of ISAR for 17 years, and it's clear that they're both incredibly proud of their team. ISAR was deployed within just five hours of the earthquake hitting, and since then it's been day after day of difficult choices and incredible courage.
Phil recalls: "Since we’ve been out we’ve had search teams working with dogs doing rapid surveys and searches of collapsed buildings, where we’ve put the dog over to see if we can find any live casualties in there. If we do, we give the property a lot more attention - lifting, excavating, tunneling in.
"It’s been quite tough this week because the crews have been walking past lots of properties where family members are outside trying to pull the guys and girls into the buildings but we’ve had to say it’s not survivable and the dog’s not going to hit, and move on to the next building to find as many people as possible. That’s been the toughest thing for people on the team who have had to do that on a number of occasions."
As we speak on the phone, shouts from the background occasionally drown out Steve and Phil's voices. They're on the site of a live casualty where teams are tunneling in rotation shifts - speaking to us in the brief moments when they're off-duty.
The team has done some vital work - but the 'window of opportunity' to rescue people is rapidly closing. Deputy team leader Steve explains: "We’ve pulled six people out alive, and a few dead, unfortunately. Six live casualties, one of them was an infant, two years of age, with her mum and father.
"We’re currently working on another two now. The window of opportunity for making live rescues is rapidly closing and probably should’ve been closed already, but people have managed to survive for a long time, more than you’d expect. Maybe because it hit at night where people were in bed and had access to bedding."
Steve, a 51-year-old father of two, is usually based in Swansea. He explains the make-up of the team in Turkey: "We’re basically a team of volunteers from a number of fire and rescue services right throughout the country. Mostly firefighters but also an expert medical team with us, and search dogs that we’ve got with us on this deployment.
"I’ve come over as part of the command and management team this time, so I’ve been helping do some of the background work, some of the multinational communications, coordination, making sure teams get into the right area. I’ve been out on the ground whenever I can, supervising and helping out the operational teams in the town.
"We’re actually both sitting now outside a collapsed multi-storey building which we’re tunneling deep into because we’ve got a confirmed hit of a police officer and the partner who have been in there for five days. We’ll be tunneling deep into the building."
Steve's seen a lot in his career - but in Turkey he's seeing "some of the most dramatic stuff" he's ever witnessed. "I’ve been to Japan, Phil’s been to Haiti and Indonesia," he says. "In the team here, there’s probably someone who’s attended every major disaster in the last few years and everyone I’m listening to is saying it’s the worst they’ve seen. It is pretty horrific, to be honest."
Steve says he doesn't think you're "ever" truly trained for what you end up seeing on ISAR jobs - but says he's got some "good friends" and the team keep an eye on one another.
Phil's role is slightly different, working as a safety and security officer to keep the whole team safe. It also involves helping the team understand Turkey as a country: "I’ve basically got to try and keep everybody safe in terms of travel management, making sure they’re safe out on the ground, just collectively making sure people understand the cultural ‘isms’ of the country we’re in and respect and behave accordingly because we’re representing the UK. We have to understand that the Turkish people are going through a traumatic emotional time."
We ask Phil if there's one main thing that strikes him about life at the forefront of this disaster. He says: "The thing that jumps out to me personally is the resilience of the Turkish people, their compassion and empathy towards us coming to help them. They’ve lost everything. I always wonder how human beings have that capacity, when they really are at the worst times in their life."
One story exemplifies this. "We approached a building and there was an old lady outside sitting at a fire. She was eating a small piece of cake and the clothes on her back were all she had. One of our officers approached her and she immediately ushered our officer towards the fire and broke off a piece of the cake. It really gives you faith in humanity... there’s moments that don’t disappear from my memory."
It's clear, even over the phone, that Phil is emotional when he talks about the people he works alongside. "It seems to me that every problem we’re faced with… we come into the country and have to source fuel and water and we have a couple of individuals responsible for that. The tenacity to source those resources that are vital to allow our base of operations to function… it just warms me.
"They don’t give up. These things are hard to come by and they just don’t give up until it happens. That extends across the whole team. We won’t give up until we get the right results. We’re in a privileged position to try and make better the emotional and physical trauma people go through."
Phil says the support from back home - from friends, family, colleagues, has been "difficult to quantify," but that "we wouldn't be able to do what we do, if that [support] didn't exist." One way it can be quantified, though, is in the six-figure sum that the Welsh Government has donated to the ISAR effort, which social justice minister Jane Hutt said would "go towards ensuring the urgent aid that people need to survive can be provided."
It's been hard, at times - and working at the heart of a disaster that's claimed so many lives can make it all the more painful leaving the family back in Wales. Phil's married, and has an eight-year-old son and a 14-year-old daughter.
"My daughter and my wife are very mature and supportive about this role," he says, adding: "Unfortunately, my son, who is eight years old and is my shadow, has been a little bit upset about it, which I understand, but it breaks my heart because I love him to bits… that takes a bit of managing, that part."
It's very clear what keeps him going, though. "In all honesty, when I joined the fire service all I wanted to do was help people. I’ve always sought out extra, challenging things in the job. Being out of your comfort zone is how you develop.
"When I found out about ISAR it ticked so many boxes of what I wanted to do with my life, and I like helping people. That extends from our normal SOS role where you can turn up and it’s going wrong for somebody and you can make their day a little bit better.
"I know it’s a ‘soft’ response but that’s the truth - I just like helping people."
Meanwhile, the Disaster Emergency Committee and its local partners are stepping up aid delivery in Turkey and Syria as donations to the Turkey-Syria Earthquake Appeal reach £1.7m in Wales and £52.8 million at UK level in just two days. The overall total includes £5 million in UK Aid Match from the UK Government and a donation of £300,000 from the Welsh Government.
DEC Cymru External Relations Manager, Siân Stephen added: "We are already seeing a flurry of events being organised, and collections being made right across Wales in support of the appeal and we want to give a massive thank you to all the organisers. We know it’s a difficult economic time, and despite that the response from the Welsh public to our appeal has been incredible. We truly appreciate every contribution that is made, no matter how small.”
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