Rescue and recovery efforts continue in Venezuela, nearly two weeks after two devastating earthquakes killed over 3,000 people.
Seven Burnaby Urban Search and Rescue members (USAR) were deployed, including two canines, and they are now back home.
Ryan Berry and Brodie McKenzie were among those sent to help on the ground.
Related:
“There is widespread destruction, many buildings that have come down, including many multi-storey high rises,” McKenzie said.
“But I am happy that we made it out there and made the impact with the resources we had at our disposal.”
One memorable moment for McKenzie was when they helped locate a survivor trapped beneath the rubble.
“[We used an] acoustic listening device. We put earphones on. We ended up using a Spanish-speaking person there to go in and yell at the ground to alert that person if they can tap, tap three times, and that rhythm would be able to be picked up by my earphones, so it was something that really uplifts the group where you’re able to hear the tapping that someone is making underground.”
The team later learned it was a young boy who was saved.
And although that was a win for the team, the journey was anything but easy.
“One of the most challenging parts of the deployment was a lot of the work sites we were working, there were family members digging with their hands, trying to locate missing family members,” Berry said.
“One of the things we had to do is, after our canines worked a site and determined no one was left alive on the site, having that conversation with the families holding out hope for their loved ones and letting them know that their loved one was not going to be coming home.”
Burnaby USAR is a grassroots, non-profit organization that relies on donations to make international deployments like this possible.
“Part of our mission is to deploy overseas to help with disaster response, but also to bring that experience and knowledge we gain from our deployment to train and prepare for if something happens here,” Berry said.
Now back in B.C. and returning to their regular emergency response duties, the team says the experience is one they won’t soon forget.
“Something that stuck with me was the resiliency of the people of Venezuela,” McKenzie said.
“Seeing the community come together, work hard to do their best on getting their lost family members out of these piles with the limited resources that they had, I have a lot of respect and appreciation for how they are going to be dealing with this going forward.”
“My heart is definitely with them.”