The alarm goes off. It is 06.55 a.m. in Vanadzor, a former industrial city in the north of Armenia. The rescuers get acquainted with the scenario: A strong earthquake struck Yerevan, the capital city of Armenia. Many buildings are damaged, there are wounded people inside. The mobilization team gathers and decides every detail on how to proceed. Within 90 minutes the camp of rescuers is set up on one of the school soccer fields that serves as a training ground. Tents are inflated, equipment is installed. The administrators, doctors, rescuers are in place. The rescuers are divided into three shifts.
Rubble and dust
08.25 a.m.: One shift heads to the incident site, one of the many abandoned factories in Vanadzor. The road is not too smooth but the rescuers manage to reach the damaged building. The surrounding is full of concrete pieces and rubble; it smells of dust and sand. It is beginning of April, the sun is shining but mornings are still quite chilly. The high and dark green fir trees add some color to the otherwise grey scenery. Under the trees, the rescuers install their equipment and boards with all the rescuers‘ names and assigned location. Everyone gets a helmet before entering the building.
„First of all, the building must be secured, to avoid further damages!“ - urges Chapinyan Arthur, head of the team in Vanadzor. The rescuers identify the places where a shoring of the building is needed. While some are preparing the shoring, others look for wounded persons and imply first aid. There are four young people found with different injuries on the head, arm, legs, and spine. Some have already lost blood.
One of the “victims”, a boy aged some 14 years, sits on the fourth floor of the almost ruined building with his one arm and one leg bandaged. There are three rescuers with him, two of them are preparing the ropes to evacuate the boy through the window, while the third one is talking to him, explaining what is going to happen next. The boy receives a candy from one of the rescuers and remains calm waiting to be lowered to the ground with the help of the rescuers. „I trust them. I am also a future rescuer“, he says before sliding down slowly.
Radik Mkhitaryan, the Head of the Rescue Preparedness Cycle at the Crisis Management Academy, has been a rescuer for more than twenty years. Mkhitaryan, who had participated in rescue operations in Iran and Turkey, does his work very calmly but with a high amount of concentration. „There is nothing more important than the life of a person. It does not matter if he is black or white, Christian or Muslim. We are first of all human beings. We need to be prepared to save every single person in danger and it is good when it is done professionally“, the rescuer stresses firmly.
Anxious questions
In one of the tents, journalists are gathering, asking questions about the situation, damages, injured people, and next steps of the rescuers. Two media speakers are sitting at the table a bit nervously and answering the questions. At the end, the participants evaluate the press conference. Samvel Shahmuradyan, the Deputy Dean of the Rescue Faculty at the Crisis Management Academy remarks that media speakers should be clearer about the time limit, use more visual aids such as maps. „The written information given to the journalists must be very short and give only the most important facts. Otherwise you fall in a trap of unchecked information“, urges Shahmuradyan.
Finally, Toni Bylang, a Swiss expert who has been accompanying the rescuers intensively over the past years, takes the floor. „Keep it simple!“ he emphasizes. „ Journalists are not your colleagues. Use a simple language without rescuers‘ jargon!“. The project funded by Switzerland since 2004 is phasing out by the end of 2016, but he still sees room for improvement. As Samvel Shahmuradyan mentions, every time they meet their Swiss colleagues they learn something new. „Every situation is unique, and there is not a single answer for all cases, so at every exercise something important comes up.“
Cooperating to save lives
Armenia has been struck by strong and devastating earthquakes many times in its history. The Spitak earthquake of 1988 took away 60.000 lives and destroyed hundreds of thousands of buildings leaving many people homeless. The Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) started its Disaster Risk Reduction activities in Armenia in the aftermath of the Spitak earthquake and since 2004 has been supporting the Armenian Rescue Services in improving the national disaster preparedness system. By the end of 2016, there will be five Regional Rapid Response Teams trained and equipped according to the standards of the International Search and Rescue Advisory Group (INSARAG) Guidelines. In 2015, the Yerevan Rapid Response Team successfully passed the qualification of INSARAG, which means they are ready to be deployed internationally for saving lives outside Armenia as well.
On the 7-9th of June, 2016 all five Armenian rescue teams will participate in the National Exercise in Gyumri (former Leninakan), the most affected city not far from the epicenter of the earthquake of 1988, where the Armenian-Swiss cooperation started.
