Experiences need to be processed

On Saturday evening at Liszt Ferenc Airport, the military attaché of the Turkish Embassy in Budapest received the BME experts returning from the earthquake-affected area.

BME’s engineers Attila László Joó, Tamás Ther, Pál Ther and István Völgyi visited the earthquake-affected area with the help of the Istanbul Technical University (ITU), the Turkish Embassy in Budapest and the National Directorate General for Disaster Management (OKF).  During their visit, together with the OKF’s HUNOR rescue service, they assisted in Antakya in the rescue and damage assessment, and then went to Kahramanmaraş to carry out the stability assessment of buildings with colleagues from the Turkish university and the local disaster management department under the guidance of AFAD.

More than 35,000 people have died in Turkey’s natural disaster and 105,000 have been injured.

Returning from the week-long mission, Attila László Joó said that they had been in a heightened emotional state on the ground, concentrating solely on providing help. The traumas they have experienced in this situation are expected to surface upon returning home. Team members have already been offered psychological help to process these, which they are likely to accept.

Their relationship with their ITU colleagues will continue, as they will jointly report on their experiences to the EELISA alliance of higher education institutions. They plan to publish their findings on the stability of buildings in articles published jointly with their Turkish colleagues.

JA-KJ

Photo: Attila Joó, Georgina Móra