«ΚΑΝΑΜΕ ΑΥΤΟ ΠΟΥ ΘΑ ΚΑΝΑΜΕ ΚΑΙ ΣΤΗΝ ΠΑΤΡΙΔΑ ΜΑΣ»
- 30 Apr 2023
- economy
With applause and in an atmosphere of special emotion, those present upon their arrival at the Eleftherios Venizelos airport welcomed the Greek rescue mission of EMAK, which was operating for a week in the debris left by the earthquake in Turkey.
The Greek delegation returned to Greece shortly before 11 pm on Sunday and was welcomed at the airport by the political leadership of the Ministry of Climate Crisis and Civil Protection, the Minister of Health, Thanos Pleuris, the chief of the Fire Brigade as well as members of the EKAB.
"We did what we would do in our homeland. We did nothing more, nothing less than what we would have done in our homeland", underlined the head of the 1st EMAK, adjutant, Dimitris Roupas, upon his arrival at the Eleftherios Venizelos airport. As he pointed out, the most important thing is that the Greek delegation is back and they are all healthy. "This is a very big disaster, we all wanted to help them. We managed it, we didn't stop, we were in the field 24 hours a day. There were too many trapped. When you arrive from the first groups the problems are too many and too big. As the days pass, the problems diminish. We had a lot to manage, our transport, closed roads, communications. Nevertheless, we managed, the locals helped us a lot and everything went well", he noted. As he pointed out, the most touching moment they experienced was their agonizing and painstaking efforts to free little Fatma, who eventually died, but they succeeded and saved her little sister.
"We did nothing less than what EKAV does every day. The only thing that changed was the degree of difficulty, which was definitely different. I believe that many things will be said in the coming days, they will clarify situations, we are all present", pointed out the head of the KEPY-EKAB mission in Turkey, Sokratis Doukas.
The members of the Greek mission are returning to Greece from Turkey with luggage full of rich operational, rescue, humanitarian, scientific and technical work, as said by the president of OASP, Professor Efthymis Lekkas. "The Greek firefighters, the EMAK and the EKAB show the way we must follow", he noted and made it clear that the specific earthquake and the specific fault that was activated in Southern Turkey does not affect the Greek area in any way. "We don't have the northern Anatolia fault that passes through Istanbul that was triggered, we have a fault that is 500 km away from the Istanbul fault. Therefore, any correlation between the rift that was activated and the Greek area is incorrect", stressed Mr. Lekkas. As he said, based on a quick autopsy they did in the entire affected area, which has dimensions of 600 km by 40 km, they found that the structures that collapsed amounted to about 200 thousand.
