Faced with life-altering, apocalyptic scenes of death, dying, and despair, a small but strong ZAKA South Africa rescue mission returned home this week from earthquake-ravaged Turkey.
The four-strong local team worked alongside its experienced Israeli counterparts in a gruelling quest to rescue people alive under mountains of rubble, making a profound contribution to search, rescue and recovery efforts.
They tried to save those who could be saved, and they honoured those who could not, in a heartbreaking recovery of those who had met their fate.
“Family members were sitting on the ground next to collapsed buildings, waiting for search and rescue teams to pull out victims, hoping it was a loved one,” said Dr Devorah Weinberg who travelled with fellow volunteers Joshua Gavronsky, Yehuda Goldberg, and Ariel Marcus. They are quiet heroes in the face of extraordinary chaos and destruction in frigid conditions thousands of kilometres from home.
They spent hours ploughing through debris, doing emotionally distressing work that requires enormous sensitivity. The team, which is currently being debriefed, had a bad telephone signal, but managed to relay messages to local support staff and had access to power through power banks.
“It was challenging to face families as you worked, often not bringing up anything and seeing the despair, brokenness, and loss of hope,” Weinberg said.
On 6 February at about 04:15 local time, a magnitude 7.8 earthquake struck south-eastern Turkey near the Turkey/Syria border. It was followed by a magnitude 6.7 aftershock a short while later. Tremors were felt as far away as Lebanon and Israel.
The death toll from the two major earthquakes had surpassed 41 000 in Turkey and Syria on Tuesday. The majority of the victims – at least 35 418 – were killed in Turkey, President Tayyip Erdogan said, making it the country’s worst disaster in a century.
As the tragedy unfolded, rescue missions from around the world converged on the worst-hit areas.
The first response was slow immediately after the quake due to bad weather, damaged roads, and the vast area, with the earthquake having an impact on 10 provinces in Turkey.
Israel sprang into action, sending one of the largest rescue teams.
A couple of days into the unfolding tragedy, ZAKA Israel requested the assistance of ZAKA SA. “A call went out in desperate need of aid, and we answered,” said ZAKA SA Operations Director Joshua Green.
Within hours, a team of dedicated volunteers was galvanised into action in a Herculean collaboration of ground support and logistics. “From the get-go, it was a mindboggling mercy mission with many moving parts,” he said.
It was vital to ensure that deployment was safe, operationally and practically viable, and could be done within the time constraints, Green said.
Once this was established, the team sourced equipment, visas, tickets, and food, all within an afternoon and by nightfall on 8 February, it had boarded a Turkish Airlines flight to Istanbul.
The urgent mission was made possible by Turkish Airlines, the Turkish Embassy, and ZAKA Israel as well as the local ZAKA team.
The team took with it things like tents, mattresses, thermals, non-perishable supplies, lighting, heavy duty clothing, batteries and backup power solutions. Heavy duty search and rescue equipment was supplied by Israel. Most of the food taken was non-perishable, such as energy bars, as well as fruit and water purification tablets.
After arrival in Istanbul, they flew to Kahramanmaras, one of the worst affected areas, and from there had to organise scarcely available transport from the Kahramanmaras airport to the ZAKA Israel base camp, arriving on Shabbos.
“It was freezing cold,” said Marcus, “Temperatures went to -5 degrees centigrade at night, and we slept in tents on the floor.
“Driving to the camp, we started to sense the enormity, intensity, and destruction of the earthquakes. Thriving businesses, houses, schools, and shops in the city were torn apart, demolished,” he said.
“We hit the ground running in spite of travelling for so long,” said Gavronsky.
“We arrived at the disaster site late on Friday afternoon, and were warmly welcomed by ZAKA Israel and the Israeli delegation. Shabbat had already started, and we were given a Shabbat meal,” he said.
Their equipment and supplies were immediately assessed, allowing the team to be ready to deploy to the disaster site at a moment’s notice.
“There was a palpable sense of Jewish pride and camaraderie, with a deep commitment to saving as many lives as possible. It was moving,” said Weinberg.
The team worked in shifts and groups of two, managed by the Israeli delegation. These shifts were organised with the safety of the rescue workers in mind, the environment and disaster site, and transport needed to access the disaster site.
“Very few people spoke English, which made communication with local rescue teams difficult,” Goldberg said. “Translators were brought in to assist rescue teams.”
ZAKA SA volunteers were struck by the immense scale of the destruction.
“Thousands of lives lost and torn apart. It’s hard to conceive how widespread it was,” said Goldberg.
Working shoulder to shoulder with the ZAKA Israeli delegation, they worked on a few collapsed buildings out of hundreds.
The team said all searches, rescues, and recoveries were conducted with humility and sensitivity, to the point that they were asked for at certain sites because of the way in which they conducted themselves. “We, and the Israeli delegation, were given tremendous respect on the ground,” the team said.
“The drive to save lives was palpable in the camp and at all times when working alongside one another. It was inspiring, and helped us get through very difficult scenes and days,” they said.
The team assisted many tragic recovery missions, including the recovery of a family of four who were found huddled together buried deep under the rubble.
Having returned to South Africa, the team is proud at having made a meaningful contribution to search and recovery efforts.
“We didn’t wait around, we jumped on a plane, and responded. We picked up and left our families at a second’s notice, to spend a week in uncomfortable and uncertain conditions, to help those who needed it most. We assisted search and rescue efforts for hours. We recovered bodies, bringing an element of closure to bereaved and broken families. We were able to deal with scenes very sensitively, and with the kavod [respect] and dignity that these helpless and unfortunate victims so deserve,” ZAKA SA said.
