Turkey earthquake: Northern Ireland 'superhero' search dog on stand-by for rescue mission

More than 1,300 people are thought to have died, and hundreds left trapped under rubble, following the 7.8 magnitude quake in the border region between the two countries.

As part of the international humanitarian response to the disaster, Raph O’Connor and his award-winning Collapsed Structure Dog – border collie Floss – were on Monday morning making all the necessary preparations for an international rescue mission.

Floss is one of a number of talented canines working for the Search and Rescue Dog Association (SARDA Ireland North), which is based in Newcastle, Co Down.

In October 2022, the seven-year-old search dog was named Hero of the Year at the annual Petplan Pet Awards for her tireless effort to locate, and undoubtedly save the life of, a woman who had been missing for several days after vanishing from the Ulster Hospital.

Raph and Floss, along with Michael McCamley and his Collapsed Structure Dog, Bodhi – a labrador – expect to hear by late on Monday afternoon, early evening if they will be required at this stage of the international response operation.

The quake, felt as far away as Cairo, was centred north of Gaziantep, a Turkish provincial capital.

In Diyarbakir, cranes and local rescue teams rushed people on stretchers out of a mountain of pancaked concrete floors that was once an apartment building.

At least 20 aftershocks followed, some hours later during daylight, the strongest measuring 6.6, Turkish authorities said.

Mr O’Connor said that SARDA, as a partner of the of British International Search and Rescue Dogs, are responding to a request for assistance from the Turkish authorities.

“We are having to get ourselves together at the minute to be on formal stand-by for a potential decision in the next few hours,” he told the News Letter on Monday morning.

"We are trying to get all our information together, our passports and pet passport numbers and all of that, so they can be forwarded over to the relevant people… so it’s just a waiting game at the minute.

"This is an epic scale of a disaster and I suppose anybody in their right mind would probably be thinking ‘do I really want to go there?’ because of the risk of after-shocks and all of that, but at this stage I don’t really think about that.

“This is what the dog is trained to do and, if there are people trapped, we put the dog into a building and she is able to identify live people, and ignore dead people. It means they can then be pulled out by the fire service and the guys with the heavy lifting equipment. It’s about saving lives."

Mr O'Connor added: "In those situations… you don’t really think about it until afterwards. But from looking at the news, and what I can see, it’s just horrendous the scale of it.”