A search and rescue team's medical director claims he has never experienced anything comparable to the magnitude of the earthquakes in Turkey and Syria.
After the earthquakes on February 6, Herefordshire's Dr. Malcolm Russell traveled to the area with UK International Search and Rescue.
The team there saved 11 people, including a man who had been buried under debris for five days.
He said, "The scope of this was just incredibly vast.
No disaster movie could ever compare to what we witnessed in terms of reality, despite the phrase "it was like a disaster movie.". " .
"We practice on specific building structures that have collapsed, and it was like that, but a thousand times worse; the entire city was in ruins," he said. ".
44,000 people were killed by the earthquakes on February 6 in Turkey and Syria, and more tremors followed. This week's earthquake in Turkey claimed the lives of at least six people.
In 2011, Dr. Russell participated in rescue missions in Christchurch, New Zealand, and Tokyo, Japan.
The TV images simply don't do it justice, he claimed.
"Across the entire city, buildings were collapsing one after another. Simultaneously, fires were burning and there was a lot of dust everywhere. ".
A man and a woman were also pulled from a collapsed hotel by the team in addition to helping the man out of the rubble.
The gentleman had a beam across his legs, which took about five hours to break up in order to free him. The lady emerged first, according to Dr. Russell.
"A tremendous team effort, everyone was working tirelessly. ".
Since then, one of the team's victims has tweeted Dr. Russell to express gratitude.
After arriving back in the UK, he said on BBC Breakfast, "It's great to have a message like that but we don't see it in those terms of heroics.
We are a professional organization, and we choose to work there because we have received the necessary training.
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