It's a small miracle each time that survivors are pulled from earthquake rubble in Turkey or Syria. Often, it's rescue dogs that help find them. In the future, robots could be used for the job as well.
Technology can't replace rescue dogs just yetImage: Ann-Marie Utz/dpa/picture alliance
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It is entirely unclear how many people are still trapped under the rubble left behind by the earthquakes in Turkey and Syria. Rescue workers search for survivors virtually around the clock, even though the chances of finding survivors are fading with each passing day.
There are several ways to find people still alive under the rubble. Sometimes, direct communication is possible when rescue workers think they hear a sign of life — trapped people drawing attention to themselves by shouting or knocking, or sending text messages to family or friends.
Small robots on wheels, equipped with infrared and thermal cameras, use a tube to check the air for CO2 and proteins typical of humans. That can point to people trapped under the rubble. With the help of loudspeakers and microphones, emergency workers can then try to get in touch with potential survivors. Drones can provide additional help with 3D images of the collapse site.
Like here in Aleppo, Syria, the search for survivors is a race against time Image: Louai Beshar/AFP
During aftershocks, the search for survivors "is highly dangerous for rescue teams because everything collapses," says Karsten Berns, a computer scientist and head of the Robotic Systems Chair at the Rhineland-Palatinate Technical University of Kaiserslautern-Landau. That's something autonomous systems are supposed to improve.
What are rescue robots able to do?
Berns is an expert in the field of robot earthquake rescue. In 2016, his team was part of a project similar to CURSOR. The robots used in the ICARUS project were also designed to facilitate relief work, including small tracked vehicles with infrared sensors and large excavator-like robots that can move heavy rubble or parts of buildings. They are operated from a distance of 1 kilometer to make sure no excavator operator is in danger while a camera transmits to the control center what the robot "sees."
Robots that can drive into collapsed houses were equipped with gas sensors — explosions from damaged gas pipes can pose a serious risk.
Both Berns' robots and the newer ones in the CURSOR project are prototypes developed by researchers and tested in individual presentations. None of these machines can help locate buried victims in the Turkish-Syrian earthquake zone. Production for use in real disasters is still a long way off. Many questions remain: Who is going to pay for the production of the expensive machines, who foots the bill for the transport to earthquake zones? No one in research has the funds, Berns told DW, adding that is where industry comes in.
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Robot or rescue dog?
One clear advantage of the rescue dogs is that they are not just prototypes but can be used here and now. Rescue dogs are on site searching for survivors under the rubble in Turkey and Syria. Dogs can smell sweat, hormones, blood, excrement or even people's breath. When they have sniffed out someone lying under the rubble, they bark and paw at the spot.
Trained search teams like these Greek firefighters are headed to Turkey and SyriaImage: picture alliance/dpa/AP
Unlike rescue robots, they need neither electricity nor the internet but only water and food. And the robots are not yet sophisticated enough to beat the nose of a good sniffer dog, says Berns — at this point, the German shepherd is still better. Robots do have some advantages though, he concedes. They can transmit images and can be steered to a precise location.
While working on the ICARUS project, Berns and his team thought about using technology to automate the decision process which buildings to send rescuers to. But specialists with real-life experience soon talked them out of the idea, warning that any such decision was already hard enough for a human expert. "There are people under the rubble who are happy that someone is coming, and the experts know that they can't save them," Berns says.
If the danger of collapse is too big, the rescue team might have to decide to leave trapped people behind so as not to endanger the rescuers' lives. You can't leave that decision to a robot.
After earthquakes in Turkey, Syria, rescue workers search for survivors
After the worst earthquake in decades in the Syrian-Turkish border region, rescue workers are searching for survivors under the rubble of thousands of houses. The quake has killed and injured thousands.
Image: SERTAC KAYAR/REUTERS
Shock in the middle of the night
This apartment building in Diyarbakir is one of several thousand buildings destroyed by the 7.8 magnitude earthquake in the Turkish-Syrian border region. The disaster struck when most people where still sleeping at 4:17 a.m. local time on Monday morning.
Image: Omer Yasin Ergin/AA/picture alliance
Countless houses reduced to rubble
In Turkey alone, authorities reported thousands of dead and many more injured. At least 2,800 buildings were destroyed — like this one in Kahramanmaras.
Image: Gokhan Cali/AA/picture alliance
Rescue attempts 'with bare hands'
Civilians and official rescue workers, like here in Adana, are searching the collapsed buildings for people trapped under the rubble. Eyewitnesses have reported that helpers are digging "with their bare hands" to reach survivors. The region was shaken by more than 50 aftershocks. The strongest aftershock, with a magnitude of 7.5, occurred on Monday afternoon.
Image: IHA/AP Photo/picture alliance
Devastation in northern Syria
The northern Syrian province of Idlib has also been severely affected. Monday's earthquake is one of the most devastating to hit the region in decades, and it's hitting areas already badly scarred by the country's civil war.
Image: Ghaith Alsayed/AP Photo/picture alliance
'Whole families are still buried' in Idlib
"People in Idlib poured out of their houses, they were in panic," a local reporter in Sarmada, Syria, told DW. "Shortly after, the first houses collapsed, which were already not in good condition before as a result of Russian airstrikes, but newer buildings also collapsed. Whole families are still buried."
Image: Omar Albam
White Helmets in action
The White Helmets, founded during the Syrian civil war, are participating in recovery efforts in rebel-held areas in northwestern Syria. These two men were searching for survivors in Zardana. By midday on Monday, more than 780 people were reported dead across Syria, and at least 2,200 people were injured in the disaster.
Image: Ahmad al-Atrash/AFP
Heritage buildings destroyed
Cultural treasures were also destroyed in the earthquake. In the Turkish province of Maltaya, the famous 13th-century Yeni Mosque was severely damaged. A winter storm is further complicating rescue work in the region. Turkey has officially asked its NATO partners and the European Union for support in the rescue and recovery work.
Image: Volkan Kasik/AA/picture alliance
Regions need help
Numerous countries — even Ukraine — have offered aid. German Interior Minister Nancy Faeser told the press that emergency aid had been arranged and that the first aid supplies were already on their way to the disaster region, including emergency shelters and water treatment plants.
Image: Volkan Kasik/AA/picture alliance
Container port in flames
The Turkish port city of Iskenderun was hit particularly hard by the quake. Thousands of containers collapsed as a result of the tremors, some of them catching fire, and a huge column of smoke still stands above the city the day after the quakes.
Image: Serdar Ozsoy/Depo Photos via AP/picture alliance
Collapsed hospital
Rescue efforts also continue in the rubble of the Iskenderun hospital, which partially collapsed on Monday, and aid workers continue to recover survivors from the rubble.
Image: Umit Bektas/REUTERS
International aid
The Red Crescent relief organization began coordinating aid shipments to the destroyed areas on Monday. Here, a plane is prepared at a military airport near Baghdad to fly aid supplies to Syria.
Image: Ahmed Saad/REUTERS
Donations for the victims
International solidarity is huge. This Turkish cultural center in The Hague collects private donations for those affected in Turkey.
Image: Phil Nijhuis/AFP
Search and rescue
Several countries have sent search and rescue specialists to the region. On Tuesday, a German ISAR (International Search and Rescue) team arrived in Gaziantep. The 42 experts and their seven sniffer dogs are heading to the heavily damaged town of Kirikhan near the Turkish-Syrian border.
