EARTHQUAKE

In February 2023 a New South Wales Police Force (NSWPF) Inspector joined a rescue team bound for Türkiye. A major 7.8-magnitude earthquake hit the country’s central and southern regions. It left more than 53,000 dead and 1.5 million people homeless.

It was felt as far away as Egypt, Israel, Palestine, Lebanon, Cyprus, and the Black Sea. In the three weeks that followed, there were more than 10,000 aftershocks.

After Türkiye’s call for international help, more than 141,000 people from 94 countries joined the rescue effort.

Within a week, the Australian Government deployed the Disaster Assistance Response Team (DART) to Türkiye to support local authorities with search and rescue efforts.

Led by Fire & Rescue NSW, the NSW Urban Search and Rescue (USAR) Task Force is staffed by emergency service workers from many federal and state agencies. When deployed internationally by the Department of Foreign Affairs, it assumes the call sign ‘AUS‑2’.

AUS-2 is one of two Australian task forces that deploy internationally in response to natural and man-made disasters.

On the ground in the Hatay province were 72 Australian specialists from Fire & Rescue NSW, ACT Fire & Rescue, Queensland Fire & Emergency Services, Public Works, doctors, NSW Ambulance paramedics and one NSW Police officer.

I as NSWPF Incident & Emergency Management Command manager was the only police officer to join the team on its arduous and heartbreaking mission. My primary role was security liaison.

During my time in the country, I diarised much of what I witnessed, what I experienced, and what I will carry with me for the rest of my life. It was a life-changing mercy mission.

Here is my story…

ON DEPLOYMENT

The Hatay Province is some 12,434 km distance from Australia.

We left Sydney from Orchard Hills FRNSW after an extensive medical and check-in process. The group was excited but a bit nervous about the security situation we had heard about.

We flew out from Richmond Airbase and stayed in Windsor the night before. It was a 1.30am bedtime with a 5am wake-up, with media and politicians at the front of our hotel, and all the cameras were on us.

Then it was onto the bus and Richmond for bag searches. It was a close call for me, as all the extra gear I packed made me 10kg overweight (our entire kit, not including people, was 22 tonnes).

C17 TRAVEL

Our plane was an absolute beast.

Everyone said how hard it would be to travel in a C17 but, after three solid days in it, I wouldn’t choose any other way. It has massive legroom, plenty of space to walk around, and it’s easy to get comfy and sleep. It’s better than any commercial plane I’ve ever been on. It’s a bit noisy, but that’s what noise-cancelling headphones are for.

We stayed overnight in Perth and were ready for a 5.30am pick-up. About 11 hours later, we landed in the middle of the desert, in the blazing hot sun, with Dubai on the horizon.

After an overnighter there, we were back on the C17 for a five-hour leg to Türkiye. Then, a two-and-a-half hour drive to what would be our home for 10 days: A flat block of land next to the 2021 Hatay Expo site.

It was a mess; very basic, cold as, rubbish everywhere and groups from other supporting countries sprinkled around the site.

It was about 9pm by the time we got ourselves sorted. A partial Base of Operations (BOO) was set up, but we had to borrow some empty tents from Switzerland for the evening so that we could get some rest.

Most were in bed by midnight, while a colleague and I stayed up and picketed the hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of gear we had brought. We had a changeover at 3am, and it was time to enter the icebox they called a tent.

We felt a few aftershocks throughout the night. Sleeping so close to the ground, you really feel them; like a soft massage on your back as you lay on the gravel beneath your tent.

The logistics guys were terrific, and the BOO was like the most incredible camping set-up you’ve ever seen. Showers; toilets; kitchen; logistics tent; de-robing tent; water bladders; heaters; and even ducted aircon in the larger Incident Management Team (IMT) tents. It was camping on steroids, which is needed as the temp varies between -6 and 17 degrees Celcius.

THE JOB

My role is to implement procedures such as security briefings and advise the IMT, prepare evacuation plans, and work closely with intelligence from our Commonwealth partners, including the Department of Foreign Affairs & Trade and the Australian National Emergency Management Agency.

The security environment presents various challenges, including evacuation needs, transportation availability, and hostility risks at the work sites.

Staying across the intel is very important, as well as putting systems in place early, such as fencing, travel plans, signage, and staff vigilance and discipline.

I also have to assess vulnerabilities to the BOO, including travel plans, and alternate route planning.

The outstanding work of our colleagues out on the worksites is a testament to the professionalism, training and dedication of the AUS-2 team.

THE PILE

Half the team headed out to the pile, while the other half stayed and prepped the BOO.

I need to predict, pre-empt, plan for and deal with any security incident that might affect the team. I set out with the first team into Hatay to review the destruction and get a feel for whether the town was receptive to our arrival.

En route, you could see the damage getting worse and worse. I was very aware and prepared for what we would see, but what we actually saw was so much worse. Everyone agreed the magnitude could only be felt by driving around this town. The only term to use was “hopeless”.

The destruction was so vast that it was hard to figure out where to start.

Local coordination was a bit messy. There were dogs; people; rubbish; debris; support services; food outlets; free clothing; military; police; and families searching for people just about everywhere. It was a melting pot of everything frantically trying to survive. Very confronting and very sad.

Back at camp was pretty damn good, given the circumstances. We had supporting country teams coming up to us in awe of our site and asking for a hot shower which, of course, we permitted.

FOUR DAYS LATER

Over the past four days, we’ve pulled 21 deceased out of the rubble under some pretty challenging conditions. Families are everywhere, literally taking the bodies off search crews and riding away with them on motorbikes and in cars.

We’re only 20km from the Syrian border.

The brother of one victim’s literally rode back to Syria with his brother across his lap. Quite confronting viewing for us, but a very raw and emotional action from this person’s perspective.

It’s 8am on Friday; we’re about to have our IMT meeting, which Canberra and the ambassador dial into. Our comms are excellent, so I’m confident that if we have an issue or need to evacuate, we can communicate locally or back with Canberra to get the wheels turning pretty quickly. We have a satellite that’s great for comms and, to be fair, getting 4Mb per second of data transfer speed here in Hatay is actually pretty fast internet.

THE WORK CONTINUES

Halfway through deployment, the spirits are good; everyone is staying disciplined in the BOO and out in the field, which makes my job a bit easier.

I’m responsible for creating the overall security plan, daily security briefings and various evacuation plans and liaising with Canberra re extraction from country should we need it. I worked hard on the plane trip, getting all the systems and documents prepped on the laptop so that once we hit the ground here, it’s just been humming along.

With all that prep, my job is more about monitoring and responding to issues as they develop.

An IDP (Internally Displaced Persons) camp is set up opposite our site. I worked with Lions Clubs International to assess if that posed a risk to us, given that 1000-1500 homeless were expected to arrive there imminently.

LIVING CONDITIONS

Sleeping is amazing. After putting your three layers on and bunking down on two roll-out mattresses, you sleep like a baby. The sound of the generators is just white noise, and I was getting between nine and 10 hours of sleep a night, which is totally unheard of in my normal life. A few of the team actually found the opposite. They were only getting five hours before heading out to the pile again the following day, which was hard on them.

All in all, it was an enriching and interesting experience. We were disappointed not to have pulled anyone out alive, especially as our BOO neighbours—Argentina—pulled three people out the same day we pulled out 11 deceased.

MORE EARTHQUAKES

Everyone undoubtedly heard about the 6.4 magnitude earthquake that rocked Türkiye on Tuesday 21 February.

The AUS-2 team was finishing packing up the BOO, ready to leave the following day.

Some people were in bed, others were finishing strapping down the trucks, while others were socialising before bed.

The earthquake struck around 8:50pm Türkiye time. And wow, what an experience. If you’ve ever been to Questacon in Canberra and been on the earthquake platform, that’s exactly what it felt like.

Unlike the simulator, a real earthquake brings with it a sound like nothing you have ever heard. It’s a loud roar that’s a mix of a plane engine and the sound of an avalanche. The shaking and rattling were bad enough, but it really is the sound I’ll remember most.

The quake lasted about 15 seconds and knocked things over, shook people out of their beds, and nearly knocked some of our people off the top of our equipment truck.

No injuries in the end, but it could have been worse. The situation could have been devastating if the quake had hit during the day as our crews were working in town.

As the quake hit, you could hear buildings coming down in the distance. Fortunately, we were in a very safe position on a flat patch of earth with no large buildings nearby.

A few rattled people emerged from their tents, but what hit home most was a group of displaced Turkish families who were staying nearby. They were very distressed; people were screaming and children crying. That third quake, no doubt, brought back some very scary memories from the earlier two quakes.

We later shared some of our ration packs and lollies with those families. They all looked in much better spirits when we left a few hours later, which was good to see on our departure. We also left gear worth more than $400,000 behind for humanitarian NGOs to use to continue the recovery effort.

REFLECTIONS

From a personal perspective, this quake drove home precisely why we were there. I remember thinking in the past, if a quake occurs, why wouldn’t you just run out of the building. You don’t. You can’t. You freeze, sit or lie down, waiting for it to stop. You can barely stand up.

That’s what I thought about afterwards: what the people who suffered loss during the original two quakes would have felt. Unfortunately, they were at home or working inside large buildings that weren’t built to withstand such force.

COMING HOME

After four days of travel via multiple military bases across the world, we arrived home on Saturday evening, and it was great to be back on home soil. Seeing the family was a great moment. I met many great people who were consummate professionals.

As you go through one of these unique experiences with a group of strangers, it is really interesting to see the bonds you create in such a short space of time. Seventeen days away felt like a month.

Overall this experience was an opportunity of a life time and what I learnt, witnessed and was exposed to is something I will remember for the rest of my life. I am really proud of what our team achieved and have built life long friends in the process.

EDITOR’S NOTE

The APJ has republished this article with the kind cooperation of the NSW Police Monthly.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Hassan El-Khansa began his career with the New South Wales Police Force in 1999. He initially served in the Parramatta Local Area Command before transferring to the Property Crime Squad within the State Crime Command. 

Subsequently, he moved to the Hills Police Area Command and then joined the Tactical Operations Unit. After returning to the State Crime Command, he worked with both the Homicide and Financial Crimes Squads. In 2021 he was promoted and appointed as the Manager of the Emergency Management Unit.

El-Khansa received the Commissioner’s Valour Award (bravery) for chasing down an armed offender who was firing shots at police in 2004. He was the Officer in Charge of Strike Force Tronto, which investigated the NSW bushfires. In 2023 he received the 2023 NSW Police Officer of the Year award.