In the days since the magnitude 7.8 earthquake struck Turkey, search-and-rescue teams, including one from Los Angeles County, have been a ubiquitous presence.
Five family members were among those rescued Saturday, five days after a major earthquake struck Turkey and Syria.At 9 p.m. last Sunday, the call went out to see who was available for immediate deployment; once the sun came up Monday, Svensson and 76 others — firefighters, structural engineers, emergency management planners, paramedics, doctors, technical experts and six K9 dogs — assembled at the Urban Search and Rescue headquarters in Pacoima.
Buildings here are a smorgasbord of urban destruction. Multistory apartment blocks have been squashed into pancake stacks of concrete; others were ground down to irregular mounds of rock detritus and distressed rebar. Still others stand dangerously askew, with bottom floors pulverized while the rest of the structure appears liable to tip over at any moment.
Working with local authorities, the team helped divvy up the city blocks into manageable chunks to determine how livable the structures were. That information would be filtered back using smartphone apps tied to a central database. Vasquez was accompanied by Sean Quigley, a canine specialist, and Gino, a black Labrador. Behind them was Matt Arledge. They would survey the site for signs of life while Carlos Slythe, a structures specialist, would monitor closely to make sure they weren’t in danger.
“If you did this,” he said, tapping his finger very lightly on a nearby rock, “I would be able to hear it.”He moved toward the opening, fed the microphone in and put on headphones. Slythe kept constant watch. After several attempts, Arledge shook his head. Nothing. By the time darkness fell, the squads had surveyed no fewer than 1,500 buildings and went back to base.Just a few hours later, though, came a call to a six-story building with potentially dozens of people inside.
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