FIREFIGHTER Chris Spencer was back on duty in Crewe this week after spending days trying to rescue victims of the Turkish earthquake.

And although the team he belonged to recovered a number of dead bodies there was elation as one man was pulled free after five days trapped in the wreckage of a building.

Chris, aged 35, has worked for the fire service for more than 16 years and is also a member of the United Kingdom Search and Rescue Team.

The earthquake struck on Tuesday, August 16, and the following day a team of Cheshire firefighters, including Chris, were requested to go out to Izmit, in the north west of Turkey, to help in the rescue attempt.

The number of people killed in the earthquake, which measured 6.8 on the Richter Scale, was going up in thousands every day with the death toll expected to reach 45,000.

The rescue team flew to Istanbul before travelling on to a small town where five bodies were recovered and the team was then redeployed to another town near the epicentre.

"When we arrived it was a scene of high activity with people coming from outside the area to try and help," said Chris. "The temperature was about 100 degrees, quite humid and you could smell the decaying bodies.

"We rescued one chap alive after five days, he had been trapped in a four storey building. We set up the Trapped Person Locater and had help from the dogs and Turkish miners.

"We broke through and the guy moved his arm. We got him out and he was completely uninjured, he'd been saved by a large fridge, which wouldn't move any further, and the fact that he was near a staircase.

"Everybody was totally elated, morale went up and everyone's hopes were raised. It was a momentous occasion, I won't forget it.

"One night we went back to the camp and went to bed about 10.30pm and at 11pm three people came and said they'd heard someone so we were deployed to another building three miles away.

"Two of us thought we heard something but after six hours tunnelling we didn't find anything, there was a real smell of death, and we had to hand over to another team.

"The Turkish Government, I thought, did remarkably well, they had bottled water there, bread and small cakes for people because the shops weren't open and you couldn't go into any of the buildings.

"It's very easy for people to criticise but an earthquake doesn't differentiate between a mayor's house, a fireman's or a policeman's so it meant there were pieces of the emergency plan that were missing.

"I just felt so sad for the people of Turkey, who are just trying to put their lives back together again.

"They were coping with it

remarkably well and were lovely people, very friendly, and we had to rope the area off because so many people wanted to help."

UKSART is a highly trained force of volunteer firefighters who are available around the clock to be deployed to attend disasters anywhere in the world.

Chris added: "It doesn't cost the brigade anything and I'd like to thank the local councillors and officers for giving us the opportunity to undertake the services which we can provide, without their support it wouldn't be possible."

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