ISTANBUL (AA) - Turkish search-and-rescue team GEA, which sent a six-member team to Sri Lanka following Sunday's quake and tsunami disaster in southern Asia, will participate rescue efforts in Badulla region.
In a telephone-interview with the A.A, Ozgur Bozoglu, the chief of the GEA team, said on Wednesday that Sri Lankan officials sent them, together with representatives of six other international aid organizations, to Badulla region by a military helicopter.
''All routes in the region were damaged due to the disaster. Therefore, it is extremely difficult to reach the most affected regions. We have waited at Colombo Airport for a long time. Then, Sri Lankan officials sent us to Badulla region by a military plane. There is not any health workers team there. We will work in a tent-camp to be erected in the region,'' he said.
Bozoglu said, ''since bodies are not buried, they are decaying rapidly in the open air. Hospitals cannot serve to the injured people. The risk of epidemics is quite high. There is shortage of medicine and drinking water. The World Health Organization has sent billions of chlorine tablets to the region. But, local people do not know how to use them. We will inform them. This is one of the most terrible disasters I have ever seen. I cannot compare it with 1999's quake disaster in Turkey. It is really worst.''
''There are two doctors, a health official and three experts in our team. We will continue to help quake survivors in Sri Lanka till January 2nd, 2005,'' he added.
More than 68,000 people were killed, and thousands of others were reported missing in southern Asia when massive tidal waves smashed coastlines after a magnitude 9 earthquake in Indonesia on Sunday morning, followed by a 7.3 magnitude jolt in India's Andaman and Nicobar Islands in the Indian Ocean.
(UK-ULG)
2004-12-29