By Lisa Ramsden
The sight of two young, orphaned sisters, left with nothing but each other, holding hands as they warily made their way through the debris of an earthquake-devastated Venezuelan street, will live with Sháuna Harper forever.
Sháuna (30), from Rostrevor, is a volunteer with K9 Search and Rescue NI. She, along with search dog Max and the charity’s founder, Ryan Gray, travelled to the South American country in the hope of finding survivors trapped beneath collapsed buildings.
On 24 June, Venezuela was hit by two large earthquakes within seconds of each other, with magnitudes of 7.2 and 7.5, prompting the country to declare a state of emergency.
The earthquakes caused widespread damage across the country, particularly in the capital, Caracas, and the state of La Guaira, where 80 per cent of buildings collapsed. Tens of thousands were reported missing, with many thousands left homeless.
Three weeks on, the estimated death toll stood at more than 4,400 people, with a confirmed 16,700 injured.
Sháuna and her team-mates arrived on 30 June and began their return journey on 5 July. Now home, the local woman has spoken about her efforts as part of the international response to the quakes.
In the immediate aftermath of the natural disasters, the American space agency NASA estimated that around 59,000 buildings had been destroyed, many with people trapped inside.
K9 Search and Rescue NI is, she explained, generally deployed at the request of a family. In this instance, they worked in tandem with ‘Serve On’, a voluntary organisation that operates in the UK and abroad.
A series of flight cancellations meant their journey to the disaster zone took almost a week after the quakes.
The first 48 to 72 hours after a natural disaster are crucial to rescue efforts, but survival can be extended if people have access to food and water.
The team endured challenging conditions and extreme heat as they carried out their searches. Sháuna said the extent of the destruction “could not be fully understood until you saw it in real life”.
She explained that each time there was a suspected noise from beneath the rubble, every search operation in the vicinity had to be immediately halted to give rescue teams the best possible chance of homing in on the area where the trapped person or persons were located.
In one instance, Max, along with several other search dogs, homed in on a survivor’s approximate location, with rescuers subsequently hearing their cries for help.
Tragically, despite their best efforts, deteriorating structural conditions forced crews to abandon the scene before they could reach them. They returned a matter of hours later, but the shouts had fallen silent.
“It’s one of the moments we’ll never forget,” said Sháuna.
“That gut-wrenching moment, knowing we had got so close, and also seeing the two little orphans looking so lost and frightened, knowing they had nothing and no one, were just two of the many heartbreaking things.”
