Antakya felt forsaken. People here had been complaining for days – pleading, in fact, for more help in finding the thousands missing and trapped in the collapsed buildings throughout their city.
Help from the Turkish government was slow to come, and they wondered: where was all the international aid?
By late in the third day of aftermath, things had changed. Roads in and out of the southern Turkish city were gridlocked with heavy equipment, ambulances and pickup trucks bringing help – albeit at a snail’s pace – to those who had long lost the luxury of patience.
Volunteers who dug for their relatives by hand were now joined by the professionals.
“Can you please stand back,” an English voice commanded from one roadside ruin halfway down Ataturk Street. The Brits had arrived.
Some 77 men and women from the UK International Search and Rescue got here on Wednesday afternoon. Firefighters, medics and a sniffer dog named Dave.
Phil Irving is usually in charge of a fire station in west…
This article was written by and originally published on www.bbc.co.uk