Dogs playing vital role to save lives in earthquake-torn Turkey

Kyle Murray and Delta, from K9 Search and Rescue NI, amongst the rubble in Turkey

A black labrador from Northern Ireland played a vital role to locate 42-year-old Melike Imamoglu who was pulled alive from rubble in earthquake-hit Turkey.

Kyle Murray, a member of volunteer organisation K9 Search and Rescue NI, said Delta did his job by sounding a life-saving alert. “It's hard to put into words that after all that hard work to hear that the woman has survived is great and overwhelming. When we heard Delta bark there was total silence. The site needs to be silent, so all the diggers and excavation work stops to let me go in to do my work.”

More than 44,000 people have been killed in the earthquake which struck Turkey and Syria earlier this month. That tragic toll is expected to continue. As this piece was being written another massive quake hit, registering 6.4 on the Richter scale. Rescue teams in various parts of the country have been using dogs to help in the search for survivors.

Ten people owe their lives to this canine hero

In the Turkish city of Iskenderun one of a team of special dogs, we don’t know his name, assisting emergency teams in the painstaking operation to discover those still alive, did his work with a spectacular outcome. After eight days trapped in the rubble, a family of ten people were rescued.

These are all known as K9 dogs, trained to assist security forces and emergency teams in rescues, drug enforcement and other operations. They have come from El Salvador, Germany, Mexico, Qatar, South Korea, Switzerland, Ukraine, US and, like Delta, Northern Ireland. In all the dog teams have found 39 people alive under the rubble.

Proteo, a German Shepherd froim Mexico, perished in the rubble.

The animals’ lives, as well as those of the rescuers, are at risk. A German Shepherd named Proteo, one of more than a dozen deployed from Mexico to assist in the disaster response, perished whilst searching deep in the rubble. Mexico’s defense minister, Luis Cresencio Sandoval, announced the loss at a daily Press conference. He said: "You accomplished your mission. Thank you Proteo for your heroic work.”

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