A rescue dog helped rescue 12 people trapped under rubble in Turkey’s Malatya province, one of 10 provinces affected by the earthquake disaster.
In a statement published by Turkey’s Defense Ministry on Saturday, “Cila” is a trained dog belonging to a natural disaster rescue battalion.
Turkey’s Anadolu Agency said Sela found 12 people under the rubble during search and rescue operations in Malatya and helped pull them out, according to a ministry post on Twitter.
Sila suffered injuries to her feet from scattered glass and metal shards and was treated by volunteer vets to continue participating in search and rescue operations despite her injuries.
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Martin Griffiths, the United Nations Assistant Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs, warned that the death toll from the severe earthquake in Turkey and Syria could “double or more”, which has so far exceeded 28,000.
On Saturday, Griffiths visited the Turkish city of Kahramanmaras, the epicenter of Monday’s 7.8-magnitude earthquake that killed 28,191 people, including 24,617 in the country and 3,574 in neighboring Syria.
Speaking to Sky News, Griffiths said: “I think it’s hard to estimate the exact toll because we have to look under the rubble, but I’m sure it will be double or more,” adding, “We haven’t actually started counting. There’s still dead.”
On Saturday, Griffiths said in a video posted on his Twitter account, “People assigned to search and relief operations will soon give way to humanitarian agencies whose work will require attention to an extraordinary number of affected people in the coming months.
