Sadness. Dignity. Kindness. Power. Silence. This is how Nikšić firefighters-rescuers who participated in rescue operations in earthquake-stricken Turkey describe people who were left without families, a roof over their heads, without dreams.
Gratitude. Shared meals. A handshake. Eyes full of pain. And again silence - which tears the soul, tears the heart, but awakens dignity.
Brother, breathe - for yourself, for your family, for us
"He's breathing... he's breathing... It's a child," echo the words of Darko Žižić as he describes the situation when they found four-year-old Ahmet.
And all the rescuers of the Montenegrin search and rescue team were breathing as one. They breathed for both Ahmet and Selma. They breathed life into life.
"Retrieving Selma lasted several hours and she was our incentive for the next day. But, the extraction of Ahmet left a special mark on me and gave me some incredible energy. The search dog's sign that there is someone alive 'turns on all the lights for us' and there is no giving up. After six hours of digging and searching, the energy drops and we think that maybe the dog didn't give us good information. The probes are inserted, we stop breathing for 15 seconds and wait, as if one of our own is there. Suddenly we hear: 'Yes. He's breathing. ... it's breathing. It's a child'. We continue drilling and come to the body of a little girl who is being held by the mother's hand. Bad thoughts again. We take out the little girl and an incredible scene - a mother in an embrace with her son. Unfortunately, she is not alive. I stroke his head and I say to him - little brother. He raises his head... That feeling will never be erased from my head and my heart," Darko tells "Vijesti", while the words "he's breathing, he's breathing, it's a child" are still ringing in my ears ".
He and I are silent. You have to "swallow" the spoken words, you have to smile at the saved Ahmet and move on.
A cry, a cat and a smile on his face
"I saw a little girl crying. I ask the translator what's going on. She explains that her cat stayed in the apartment, on the fifth floor. I ask them if they have a crane, because I'm going to enter the apartment. A little disbelieving, they tell me that it's not very safe, but experience tells me that the building is not in a bad condition and that it will last. The crane is coming and we're going to get the cat. We have to put a smile back on that little girl's face, if only for a moment."
A smile. Life. Much needed by the residents of Hataj, the city where Darko was with the Montenegrin search and rescue team.
"The night before leaving, I looked on Google Maps to see what the buildings in Hatay looked like, at the location where we are supposed to work. In the morning when we got there - an incredible sight - everything was destroyed. My first thought was as if we had come to a city where has been at war for several years".
This "war" that hit Turkey and Syria lasted a short time, but it claimed tens of thousands of lives. He took away both hope and tears. And preserved his dignity.
"The people of Hatay are an extremely proud people who know how to deal with pain. On their faces you cannot recognize the pain that has befallen them. With all their losses of families and everything they have acquired, they find the strength to approach you, to offer you with tea, coffee or some biscuits. A people from whom one can learn a lot. What would they say to me - heroes are known through hardship".
Darko says that he was amazed by the dignity of the people who lost everything, and the modesty of the children whose childhoods were destroyed overnight.
"A man from the Red Crescent goes and distributes chocolates. He comes across a mother with two children. The girl takes one chocolate bar and offers it to her sister who says no. She puts the chocolate bar back in the box. Think how big this child is and how humble he is even in the most difficult situation, where everyone would be predatory... I would love to go back there to see how they are, but first to hug them all. As one of their engineers said: 'See you on a better occasion, in a better time'. And we will".
Twin brothers for general celebration
Goran Tripković, one of the "magnificent eleven" rescuers from Nikšić who together with 19, no less magnificent, colleagues from Podgorica went to Kahramanmaras, the city most affected by the earthquake, on their own initiative, tells the story of finding the twin brothers.
"In the building that they wrote off that there was no possibility that anyone survived, the miners found twin brothers aged 17-18. The building, due to the configuration of the terrain, sank six meters. They dug under the building and found the twins who were alive , healthy and apart from being dehydrated - they didn't have any visible injuries. That moment when everything stopped, when everyone celebrated as if a goal had been scored in the World Cup final, I will never forget. That is what left the strongest impression on me. Such situations give us additional desire and strength to continue working further," he says.
Tripkovic underwent earthquake rescue training with French instructors, but he says that everything learned falls into the water when you come to a destroyed city.
"When I got there and saw something that was supposed to look like a city, the neighborhood that we were given to search, it didn't match the image I had in my head at all. I've never seen such an amount of devastation in my life. Everything that they did to us taught back then, even the ways of searching the ruins, it fell into the water at that moment. If we didn't know there was a building there, it would have looked like a huge pile of construction debris that someone had unloaded. And you should find a survivor there." .
When the silence echoes
Goran talks, and I try to imagine Kahramanmaras after the earthquake. Not worth it. Even the photos he shows me don't help. There are situations that cannot be imagined. They should be experienced and survived. Firefighters-rescuers from Nikšić and Podgorica experienced such a situation. The silence from Kahramanmaras still echoes, but also Goran's words that the survivors thanked them when they found the body of a dead family member.
"We were taught that the dead should be left, that they should be pulled out later, but there was always one of the family members with us who expected us to pull out their victims as well. That's what we did, and when they were taken out, they ruins, first thanked us, and only then performed religious activities, as their tradition dictates. Their silence is incredible. The only thing I could read on their faces was the indescribable pain they suffered. But they kept that pain to themselves, no burdening none of us. They only gave us silence".
They also gave them a helping hand, shared food with them. And all in silence. And Goran was convinced that this silence echoes.
"They brought us the most necessary things that are used during the rescue from the ruins. They even brought us food, and all that without making any sound, the forest. They were behind us, but they didn't bother us, they helped us. They know best where he was which apartment, which room, and with gestures they told us what we could expect. They were our right hand."
Kahramanmaras in hearts and minds
And the team from Nikšić and Podgorica was the right hand of the local firefighters in that area. Accidents bring people together, so they also became friends with their colleagues from Kahramanmaras, follow each other on social networks, send them videos of "their territory".
"In that neighborhood, on the 11th day, the search for survivors was completely stopped and heavy machines entered. The local firefighters sent us a video from a drone where it can be seen that there are no more people except for heavy machines that load rubble into large trucks, without looking for casualties. The fact that the policemen brought us a sack of 200 kilos of hazelnuts, because that area is famous for hazelnuts, is dear to all of them. forgot".
But that's why I can't forget Kahramanmaras. He is there, in their hearts and minds.
"I feel extremely sorry for those people, because they have shown how great they are and how strong they are. I would like, if I could, to go there and see what happened to that city, how those people coped with all those adversities that find them and to visit 'our' territory, if I know it".
Let's hug, whatever happens
The youngest member of the Nikšić team, twenty-six-year-old Luka Bijelović, talks about the happiest, but also the most difficult moments:
"I was the happiest when a living child was found. Then we all celebrated, it can't be described in words. Both the excavator drivers, and the families who found their dead members. The moment that child was pulled out, everything stopped".
Everything stopped, only life went on. Luka tries to describe the feeling when survivors thank you for handing over the body of a dead family member, but he can't. As he says, these are situations where words fail. There is only emotion to spare.
"The hardest thing for me was when we found families that were completely killed in the earthquake. We found them hugging each other in bed. That's what people say - let's hug each other, whatever happens. That was the hardest thing for me. Maybe you would do the same in at some point something like that happens to you - let's hug each other, so what happens".
And he talks about the pride of the people who lost everything in a moment, about the dignified silence, about his pride for being a member of the team.
"It is a great honor to be among the best rescuers in the world, to be a member of a team that from tiny Montenegro, which has 600 thousand inhabitants, from a small service composed of 60 operatives, goes to help a big country like Turkey. This is a great experience and this cannot be can forget in our lifetime. An experience that teaches us how to proceed. Every day at work is a new experience, every intervention teaches you something and you become much more stable and mature, first a human, then a rescuer," says Luka, who left for Kahramanmaras with 26 years, and he came back much "older", more experienced, more mature...
The victim's family hugged on a two-seater
"At the moment when the two- or three-year-old boy was found alive, there was national rejoicing. We all expected him to behave differently, but he was laughing. That smile of his gave us enormous strength, and that evening we worked until one or two. hours after midnight. Even their mayor came. We simply felt that we had to work much longer that evening than we had planned," says the commander of the Nikšić Protection and Rescue Service, Slavko Tadić.
He says that he went to Istanbul about a dozen times, was in contact with merchants from that city, and for him, the Turks were a correct people, someone you can rely on and with whom you can make an agreement. Now he got to know their other side, which, he points out, left him speechless. Not only him, but also the other firefighters-rescuers.
"These are people with incredible souls and emotions, people who in all their pain are so dignified, so great. We could not understand that there is so much humanity in such pain. They surprised us with their kindness. And their silence. But their silence helped, because they gave us enough space to be able to concentrate on specific tasks. They did not hinder our work in any way, but helped - with silence and dignity".
He reveals that during the search, they did not come across bodies, but body parts, and that they would have reached the victims by long and careful digging, as well as that he cannot forget the first intervention. The family hug doesn't allow it.
"The dead family of four was hugging each other on the sofa. The mother with the baby in her arms, hugged the little girl and the father lay down on top of them".
He and I fell silent. Me to "swallow" a tear and calm the trembling of my voice, he to be with those people again.
"We can't wait to go there, to see a recovered city and a more or less recovered people".
They do not know about religion, nation and border
He explains that all situations there were dangerous, that the alarm bells often sounded because there was a possibility that the "surviving" buildings would collapse, but that it helped them to know who was in front of them and who was watching their back.
"Colleagues from Podgorica, we also showed and proved that we are a serious unit and team. We didn't leave anything to chance, we organized ourselves well. We know that logistics is the most important, so we bought everything we need, food, water, medicine, and started. We did what we think we are capable of and we proved that we are. Our team did not count 11 members by chance. We are like Barcelona - you know very well who plays, who is the point guard, who is the attack, who is the defense, and who is the goalkeeper and the captain. We shared the roles and did what we know. We knew what we were doing, who we were working with, who was guarding our backs, who was in front of us. I am proud to have been part of that team".
And he is also proud of the fact that going to Turkey is the first international peace mission of Nikšić and his unit under the auspices of the United Nations.
"There were several colleagues whose passports expired and we finished everything within 15 minutes. It just took good will and a huge amount of professionalism and love for life to go on this mission. This is not the first time we have done something like this on our own initiative. When there were floods in Obrenovac in 2014, our unit reacted on its own initiative in an identical way and did the job. We proved that there is no religion, no nation, no borders in this professionalism of ours."
Bad construction as a warning
Rescuer Goran Tripković says that Kahramanmaras is the fastest growing city in Turkey, and that in ten years it "grew" by 100 thousand inhabitants.
"That expansion cost them. Whole neighborhoods were disappearing and out of 15 of the same buildings - 14 collapsed, and one remained standing as a candle. We asked the locals to explain it to us. They told us that there is also corruption there. They would control one or two buildings, and let the others work in a campaign way, and when the judgment day came, the one that was done properly remained intact. The curiosity of that city is that the church remained intact, not even the glass was broken. And one of the rare buildings that remained intact in the entire area is the building of the Chamber of Engineers, which deals with construction. It stands as a beacon and shows everyone else how it should have been built. If they had built the way that building was built, probably most of the victims would have survived".
Tripković says that a colleague from AFAD told them that an assessment was made in San Francisco of buildings that could collapse during a strong earthquake.
"They determined that there are 50 buildings that need to strengthen their foundations, because even in this earthquake the buildings were damaged due to their foundations. They decided to try to strengthen all those 50 thousand buildings in the next ten years. How lucky that it was done in Turkey as well".
That is why he hopes that the authorities in Montenegro will listen to their recommendations, which, as he points out, can make everyone better off.
"We have a great experience which, if someone hears us from higher authorities, can only benefit this country. I am proud that my colleagues from Podgorica and I presented ourselves in the best possible light, first of all, then our services, cities and the country".
We lack equipment, we don't have any dogs, the system is not ready
Rescuer Luka Bijelović points out that the countries of the region are twenty years ahead of Montenegro when it comes to equipment.
"Even before this earthquake, we were talking about this happening in our country - that we are unprepared. Our system is not ready. We are even lagging behind the region. They also have search teams, thermal cameras, and we as a country have none of that. The state does not have any search dogs. That's why on the plane, when we started back, we agreed on how to fight for the system, new equipment, how to progress, to be more prepared".
Slavko Tadić points out that they have already presented part of it to the local administration, which promised them help, and that he hopes that the state will understand that investment in protection and rescue services is an investment in the security of the people and the state.
"Colleagues from Podgorica and we showed that we are professional as a unit and that we were able to arrive and escape and exist at the battle site. From all this, we drew lessons that we presented to the local authorities and found their understanding. We are already in the process of acquiring search dogs, the missing collective equipment that is used to search such terrains, so that, together with our colleagues from Podgorica, we will create a respectable team that will be able to respond and help everyone who needs it".
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