Turkish Ambassador to China Abdulkadir Emin Önen shakes hands with members of the Chinese rescue team in Beijing yesterday before their departure to Türkiye. The rescue team was dispatched by the Ministry of Emergency Management and consists of specialists from the Beijing Fire and Rescue Administration, the National Earthquake Response Support Service and the Emergency General Hospital. They took a chartered flight from Beijing yesterday afternoon to the quake-hit area in Türkiye. Xinhua
Shenzhen Rescue Volunteers Association will send a six-member advance unit to join a non-governmental team from China to do rescue work in Türkiye, where a devastating earthquake hit Monday.
The earthquake, one of the strongest in the century, killed more than 5,000 people in Türkiye and Syria, leaving destruction and debris on both sides of the countries’ borders.
“Following international disaster relief protocol, our team has initiated an international red alert response at 1 p.m. Monday, and registered at the Virtual Onsite Operations Coordination Center of the United Nations at 4 p.m. The registration status is ‘monitoring,’” Wu Bingning, public relations director of the team, said at an interview yesterday.
The unit will leave this afternoon from Hong Kong and paperwork is completed, according to Wu.
The rescue team is seeking for resources that will be helpful for rescue work in Türkiye among Chinese-funded enterprises, overseas Chinese organizations and associations of Chinese students in Türkiye. Resources include local interpreters, guides, vehicles, fuel, equipment and delivery personnel, material procurement channels and transportation.
China will provide the first batch of emergency aid worth 40 million yuan (US$5.89 million) to Türkiye, Xinhua reported.