Earthquake: Turkiye translator can't sleep well knowing fellow citizens are suffering

This question has been troubling Alperen Eskici, 28, one of the four translators attached to the Malaysian Search and Rescue (SAR) Team based at the Nurdagi Stadium following the devastating earthquake in Turkiye.

The procurement assistant at a local non-govermental organisation said when news of the earthquake broke, he immediately emailed the local volunteer organisation offering to assist in whatever way he can.

"After that I received a reply saying I will be attached to Malaysian SAR Team in Nurdagi, and without hesitation I accepted the offer and took a flight here," he told Bernama here today.

Like members of the Malaysian SAR Team, Alperen also sleeps in a canvas tent and eats the same food as the rescuers.

After following the Malaysian SAR Team in their mission to locate survivors under the rubble of a building a few times, Bernama saw firsthand the importance of having translators with the team.

This group of big-hearted people work as a bridge of communication between the Malaysian and local SAR teams.

Sometimes arguments broke out between our SAR team and the local team on how to carefully remove concrete slaps or rubble in order for rescuers to safely retrieve the dead bodies and hand them over to paramedics.

When that happened, a translator would intervene and explain to the local SAR team how the Malaysian team worked.

The Malaysian SAR team would like to carefully remove the bodies without inflicting any further damage, and the method sometimes seemed too slow for the local SAR team.

The local translator is also heavily involved in the scout team looking for new SAR sites believed to be holding survivors.

The translator will approach the local SAR team at the site, offering help from the Malaysian SAR team.

For Ekrem Mese, 36, being a translator for the Malaysian SAR Team is one way to help ease the burden of those affected by the earthquake.

He said it was an honour to work with the highly professional team.

"I love being around the very professional team. They have helped a lot of people in the field (Nurdagi)," said the structural engineer.

For Istanbul-based businessman Arif Akdag, 52, he immediately bought a plane ticket to Gaziantep after reading a message via Facebook from his old friend, Putrajaya Precint 7 Fire and Rescue Station chief Mohd Yaacop Yusoff.

Arif was the translator for the Malaysian SAR team in 1999 after the Istanbul earthquake and Mohd Yaacop was one of the team members deployed.

"This is the second time I am with the Malaysian SAR team helping the Turkish people affected by earthquake. I'm very happy that Malaysian people and the SMART team here are helping Turkiye. We will never forget what you have done for us," he said.

So far the Malaysian SAR team has retrieved 47 bodies from under the rubble and rescued a family of five.

According to international media reports, as of Friday, 38,044 people have died in Turkiye and 3,688 in Syria in the Feb 6 quake, with about 20,000 people injured in the two countries.