In Turkey, hope of finding life under the rubble has faded and international rescue teams have withdrawn, greeted with gratitude by the people affected by the 6 February natural disaster.

Most of the Bulgarian rescue teams have already returned to their homes, with four army medics remaining on the ground, Chief Commissioner Alexander Dzhartov, head of the General Directorate "Fire Safety and Protection of the Population", told BNR. He noted that Bulgaria was one of the most active countries to send teams after the devastating earthquake in Turkey.

A total of 47 men and women from the National Association of Volunteers in Bulgaria participated in the rescue operation, which lasted over 80 hours, to search for survivors under the rubble. They are are members of Voluntary Formation - Sofia, "Emergency Rescue" - Plovdiv, "Cave Rescue - Plovdiv 112", Voluntary Formation "Mayday", Voluntary Formation - Ruse, and others.

"In the shortest possible time, within 4-5 hours, we managed to buy the things we lacked in terms of equipment - sleeping bags, tents and to inform our employers, who were very understanding," says Krasimir Karakashev, head of the "Mayday" volunteer unit, in an interview with BNR-Blagoevgrad.

"Bulgaria was in a camp of 47 countries set up by their organisation, which coordinates and manages search and rescue activities in earthquakes. It is an umbrella organisation bringing together hundreds of smaller organisations and volunteers. In this camp, unfortunately, we Bulgarians were the worst in terms of equipment and technique. But we were the best in another aspect - our flag flew over the buildings of the whole base. Everyone there was very eager to help. Some countries came with teams of 700-800 people. For example, the Israeli team had come with a field hospital, with engineers, with a vet for the dogs.

The only thing the Bulgarian team had was an acoustic microphone, which we placed on the remains of some of the buildings - if we could find any left. We were part of the group of smaller teams. Besides this microphone we also had the desire and expertise to help. We were lucky - we managed to detect 29 sites with survivors. Kilian, the 6-year-old dog who was handled by a Swedish civil servant, confirmed 12 of those 29 locations and 31 lives were saved as a result. It's a team effort because if we didn't do our initial job of finding survivors, others after us couldn't continue."

Donations worth 43 thousand euro were collected to support the work of Bulgarian volunteers on the ground. In all likelihood, the unspent funds, amounting to around €30 thousand, will be invested in the purchase of gear equipment for the volunteer formations in the country. This is extremely necessary because, in the words of Krassimir Karakashev, volunteer NGOs are not supported by the state. They are not provided with state funds for maintenance, they are not given premises in which to carry out their activities, they have no institutional and legal support. The state supports only national organisations and municipal voluntary groups, some of which, however, are questionable as to how effectively they carry out their duties and how useful they really are in disasters and emergencies.

"Among the 286 municipal formations established in Bulgaria, I can safely say that no more than 30-40 of them are working. These are groups that aim to help people, but the important thing is to have cooperation between mayors, municipal councilors and volunteers who work together to help citizens", explains Krasimir Karakashev.

Compiled by Gergana Mancheva /based on an interview by BNR- Blagoevgrad/