Burnaby firefighters return from Nepal
Posted May 4, 2015 4:54 pm.
Last Updated May 4, 2015 4:57 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
RICHMOND (NEWS1130) – A team of BC firefighters has returned from earthquake-stricken Nepal after rescuing a trapped Canadian and helping the national army recover bodies.
The crew of 22 men, three doctors and three dogs from Burnaby and Mission fire halls arrived back in Canada from a one-week rescue mission.
The group spent several days searching for buried survivors around the capital Kathmandu and also journeyed to remote villages several hours to the east.
Capt. Steven Leslie says it’s going to be a tough go for the people who must rebuild their lives because they saw entire villages where every building will have to be torn down.
Firefighter Brad Dairon described how it felt. “Unbelievable. I don’t how to even start to explain it. I need time to just take it in and decompress and process everything. The people, the sights, the devastation, nothing like I’d ever seen before.”
“The only way that you could help them was to reassure them, sometimes they think that their family members were buried in a certain spot, we’d bring in our dogs. One spot we dug for two and a half hours only to find nothing. But we still had to explain to people the process,” adds Firefighter Jeff Clark.
The volunteer team members deployed to the Himalayan country paid their own way and used their own time, while their flight was sponsored by Cathay Pacific.
More than 4,000 rescue workers from around the world have travelled to Nepal since the April 25 disaster that’s killed more than 7,300 people.
(with files from Lauren Sundstrom)
