SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Almost a week after the 7.8 magnitude earthquake that struck Syria and Turkey, the death toll continues to rise. More than 28,000 people have now been reported dead by officials.
The race is getting even more urgent to rescue as many people as possible from the rubble, but also to send aid.
Los Angeles County Fire Urban Search and Rescue Team has been deployed to the earthquake.
That makes the Sacramento Fire Department the next to deploy if needed for any international disaster or any disaster within our region.
Sac Fire is one of just 28 Federal Emergency Management Agency Urban Search and Rescue teams. They’ve been responding to incidents dating back to 1992. They went to Haiti for the earthquake, most major hurricanes like Katrina, Irma, Harvey and 9/11, which happened just after Assistant Chief Patrick Costamagna signed up.
"We are monitoring everything that is going on and if we were asked we would happily accept to give any assistance we could internationally," said Costamagna.
Urban Search and Rescue Teams operations are self-sufficient and don’t require anything from local authorities and resources. They bring their own structural engineers, emergency medicine doctors, K-9 search teams and highly trained rescue operators.
"One of our specialties is the breaking and breaching of heavy concrete getting through rebar if that have it in the concrete and construction over there lifting the debris off and trying to get into where the survivors are," said Costamagna.
While the race to rescue is on 7,000 miles away, a sense of urgency at the Tarbiya Institute of Roseville to gather supplies and donations to send.
Imam Sherif Azeez, director of the Nizami Order said the drive was organized by young students.
"In the middle of this crisis the calamity in the middle of grief and sadness we look at these things as a catalyst for us Muslims to get together," said Imam Sherif.
They have a truck traveling to multiple donation sites to gather supplies. They are driving to San Francisco International Airport and loading them onto a plane headed to Istanbul sponsored by the Turkish embassy.
Anyone can donate materials or supplies to the Roseville location at 10031 Foothills Blvd. until 2 p.m., Sunday.
Urban Search and Rescue teams always commit to a site for two weeks, but this time they're anticipating the teams will stay for a month.
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