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SEPANG – Malaysia is sending its Special Malaysia Disaster Assistance and Rescue Team (SMART) to Turkiye to assist efforts to locate victims of yesterday’s earthquake in the country’s southern region.
Foreign Minister Datuk Seri Zambry Abdul Kadir said Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim instructed Wisma Putra and Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department (Sabah and Sarawak Affairs and Special Functions) Datuk Armizan Mohd Ali to take immediate action by sending the SMART team to Turkiye following the earthquake that hit 10 regions.
He said the Foreign Ministry together with the National Disaster Management Agency under the Prime Minister’s Department, the Malaysian embassy in Turkiye, and the Turkiye embassy in Malaysia would coordinate the operation.
“I reached out to (Turkish) Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu to get an idea of the situation there and he voiced their urgent needs, including (search-and-rescue) assistance, followed by aid in the form of medicine and other humanitarian aid,” he told the media at the send-off for the SMART team at Kuala Lumpur International Airport here last night.
Armizan, the search-and-rescue team’s mission chief Mohd Khairul Jamil, and Turkiye ambassador to Malaysia Emir Salim Yuksel were also present.
Zambry said 12 Malaysians in the affected regions of Gaziantep, Şanlıurfa, and Adana have contacted the Malaysian embassy in Turkiye and were confirmed safe.
Meanwhile, Khairul there were 70 personnel in the SMART team – including a medical team from the Royal Medical Corps, the Malaysian Fire and Rescue Department’s K9 Unit, and a hazardous chemical materials special team – that departed last night for Istanbul on a Turkish Alirlines flight.
He said the team will report in as soon as it arrives in the affected area and will be mobilised according to the secretariat that is determining the areas for the operations. He added that the team was experienced in such operations, having been involved in 12 previous operations, including an earthquake that hit Izmit, Turkiye in 1999.
The team was also accredited by the International Search and Rescue Advisory Group in 2016, which enabled the team to be sent to participate in disaster missions abroad.
The earthquake that hit the southern region of Kahramanmaras at 4.17am local time (9.17am Malaysia time) yesterday measured 7.4 on the Richter scale, with its epicentre at Pazarcik district. Media reports have indicated that the earthquake has taken at least 2,379 lives in Turkiye, with another 1,444 deaths recorded in Syria so far. – Bernama, February 7, 2023
