On return, rescuers speak of ‘unspeakable pain’

“The unspeakable pain is something we will always carry with us,” five of the 36 Greek rescuers who recently returned from quake-shattered Turkey told the press in Athens on Tuesday, describing their experience as the first foreign team to reach the site of the devastating February 6 temblors.

“Your neighbor is the first to reach out in a tragedy,” said Efthimis Aravanis of the EKAB emergency service. Panagiotis Giannopoulos, coordinator of the team’s EMAK fire service rescuers, spoke of the warmth with which the team were received by the locals. “During the breaks in the operations, ordinary citizens would bring us tea or bread,” he recalled.

The Greek mission also comprised eight doctors and paramedics, two civil engineers and three search-and-rescue dogs.