The Portuguese rescue team arrived in Lisbon with a “mission accomplished” mood after helping out with a search operation in Turkey.

A Portuguese team deployed to assist with search and rescue operations in Turkey, hit by two earthquakes, arrived in Lisbon this Saturday feeling “mission accomplished” as it is now hard to find anyone alive under the rubble.

“This is how we came to the end of this mission, having fulfilled our duty. The survival percentage window is completely closed. If anyone turns up alive, luckily that person had access to water. Otherwise, it is impossible to survive in such a situation,” Jose Guilherme, commander of the Portuguese mission, told reporters.

Joint Operational Force (FOCON) – coordinated by the National Emergency and Civil Protection Authority (ANEPC) and consists of 52 members of the ANEPC Special Civil Protection Force, GNR, the Sapadores Regiment of Lisbon Firefighters and the National Institute of Emergency Medicine. (INEM) and six dogs – spent more than a week in the Turkish city of Antakya, which was hit on February 6 by two strong earthquakes.

The commander stated that these missions have their time and that “it’s time to turn off the switch and move on to the next step”, as these commands, like the Portuguese one, are formatted for search and rescue of lives.

“The work being done is to remove the wreckage, which needs to be done as quickly as possible, because soon these people will have more serious health problems,” he explained.

José Guilherme recalled rescuing a 10-year-old child as the most important moment of the mission.

“During some searches that we carried out in one of the sectors in the lower part of Antakya, the dogs first discovered, also at the request of people, a corpse. a few meters away. We immediately sent the first team for the first assessment, the dogs made a detection, we made reinforcements and from there a whole teamwork developed until we arrived little Baran. At that moment we were all Baran and we were all 10 years old,” he recalled.

The commander emphasized that “it was worth it” not only for saving a life, but also for finding the bodies in the rubble and being able to deliver some of them to their families.

“We found some bodies, and some were delivered to families. It also increased our motivation to see that people can mourn in the midst of this disaster,” he said.

Jose Guilherme also noted the joint work of the operatives and the friend they found in this completely destroyed city: “We were lucky that we had a guide, she was our friend. Our team has grown from 52 to 53 people, that has changed everything.” , emphasized.

The commander also said that these incidents and disasters “require a lot of effort, not only physical but also emotional”, and that the team members are “properly trained” and “are professionals of a high level and unsurpassed availability.”

José Guilherme also added that in the city of Antakya, where there are about 600,000 people, there is no one living in houses, they all live in camps for displaced persons, and that its residents need clothing, medicine and food at the moment.

The arrival ceremony of the Portuguese team at the Figo Maduro military terminal in Lisbon was attended by the Ministers of National Defense Helena Carreiras and the Interior José Luis Carneiro, as well as the Ministers of Civil Protection Patricia Gaspar and Health Ricardo. Mestre.

More than 44,000 people have died in Turkey in two massive aftershocks that hit the country and northern Syria on February 6.