international dog squad helps save lives after Venezuela earthquakes

Tsunami, a mixed breed border collie who found her way by sniffing and digging tunnels through the ruins of Venezuela’s devastating earthquakes, was on her way to one last job before her retirement.

The person, who can be recognized by his heterochromia, in which one eye is brown and the other is blue, has helped find many people trapped under the rubble in the last 10 days.

“Our four-legged rescuer managed to save 25 people from the rubble of buildings that collapsed in the earthquake,” the Venezuelan government said in a statement on Thursday. he said.

After years of service, this will be Tsunami’s last mission, according to a post from K-SAR ECID, Venezuela’s canine disaster response team.

“He retires at the peak of his performance, having proven his mettle and giving his all on the field,” the group said.

Nearly 30,000 first responders and more than 3,300 international rescue workers are racing against time to find survivors. deadly earthquakes The incident that hit Venezuela on June 24. But those numbers don’t account for a significant portion of the effort: Dozens of highly skilled search-and-rescue dogs deployed alongside teams from more than 20 countries are helping turn some disaster stories into tales of survival.

Dogs specially trained to detect human scent spent days searching for people trapped under the rubble of nearly 200 buildings that collapsed after two powerful earthquakes hit back to back.

In widely shared viral footage, they can be seen searching inside damaged buildings, crawling under broken concrete slabs and squeezing into tight spaces beyond the reach of human handlers.

Venezuelan National Assembly President Jorge Rodríguez said that approximately 137 search and rescue dogs participated in the operations.

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Another member of this international drug crew was a Belgian Malinois named Bart, an Argentinian who helped rescue two children alive from the rubble and remove six bodies, presidential spokesman Adrián Ravier said Tuesday. Bart is part of a military mission sent by the government of President Javier Milei, including search-and-rescue dogs from the Argentine Marine Corps, to assist relief efforts in Venezuela.

“We want to give special recognition to all rescue dogs for their indispensable work,” Ravier said at a press conference.

According to the Argentine Ministry of Defense, dogs are trained to operate in complex disaster environments and perform two critical tasks with their handlers: locating survivors and rescuing victims trapped under collapsed structures.

Rambo, another Belgian Malinois trained to find survivors, arrived in Venezuela as part of El Salvador’s Urban Search and Rescue (USAR) team.

Fernando Portillo, Rambo’s handler and USAR El Salvador member, said every search begins with the dog surveying the area. When Rambo detects the scent of a living person, he barks loudly, alerting rescuers and directing them to the right place.

El Salvador’s presidential press secretary said, “Rambo’s training, discipline, and search abilities made him a key member of the Salvadoran contingent supporting rescue operations as a true four-legged hero.”

Some dogs even started looking for their friends.

It was the same for Mali, a member of Mexico’s International Topos Rescue Brigade, who found a live white Maltese dog under the rubble. Rescue worker Miguel Ángel García told CNN that Mali also assisted in direct searches that led to the discovery of six bodies.

Other dogs participating in the 24-hour rescue operations included border collies Orly and Balam, members of the Mexican Red Cross; Dastan, a Belgian Malinois from the Bogotá Fire Department; and Ivi and Tina, who joined the rescue teams from Spain.

On Friday, Acting President of Venezuela Delcy Rodríguez honored the dogs by awarding them the title of “Canine Heroes of Venezuela” at a ceremony in La Guaira, the coastal state hardest hit by the earthquakes.

Among those recognized were four dogs accompanying Colombian rescue teams, as well as four dogs from Slovakia, five from Spain, six from Jordan and Portugal, and eight from the Czech Republic.

At least 2,954 people died as a result of the devastating earthquakes, the government said in a statement on social media on Saturday. There is no official count on the number of casualties.

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