Yousef
Ansari has returned. Back to the expanse of rubble, looming
up again to his left and right, back in the city where he faced
the worst images in his life.
The 25-year-old releases his German shepherd from its leash.
Corony starts to search with his nose a few centimetres above
the dusty ground, just as it did after the earthquake that transformed
Bam into a cemetery.
On that day, 26 December 2003, 43,000 people were buried under
the bricks, mud and rubble. Nearly half the ancient city’s
inhabitants died.
Together, Corony and Yousef Ansari, his Iranian Red Crescent
handler, saved the lives of 13 people.
While his dog searches through the ruins, Ansari starts to think
about the past, about the earthquake and all the tears, the
mourning and the stony faces he saw in those terrible days,
when survivors tried to rescue their loved-ones from the rubble,
with their bare hands until they were utterly exhausted.
He recalls those eyes filled with pain and sorrow, telling him
things he never wanted to know. He will never forget the father
carrying his dead child in his arms.
Ghostly images
The 25-year-old remembers his own tiredness in those days. For
four days he got hardly any sleep. “I have to concentrate,
no matter how tired I am,” he told himself.
When night fell, the beams of flashlights and floodlights glided
over the destroyed city, creating ghostly images.
Whenever Corony barked, it was time for hope. Everyone watched
the dog and his handler. Maybe one more human life could be
saved in this disaster. But too often the relief workers could
only tell a sad certainty.
Corony is barking now, leading Yousef Ansari to a hole in a
hill of rubble.
Waiting there is Michael Kielau, resplendent in his red overalls.
The 48-year-old is deputy leader of the German Red Cross (GRC)
rescue dog unit from Hamburg-Altona. For more than a year he
has been supporting the Iranian Red Crescent rescue dog unit,
making a two-week visit to the Middle East every three months.
Now he has travelled with ten dog-handlers and their animals
for to conduct training in the destroyed city of Bam. “I
am proud of my colleagues and their dogs,” Kielau says,
wiping the dust off his clothes after praising the sniffer-dog.
The dog runs to his master, wagging its tail, a colourful rubber-toy
in his mouth.
Trainer and friend
“Yousef Ansari and his Corony saved so many lives. Now
I know why I am working as a trainer,” explains Kielau
proudly.
He pats the shoulder of the much smaller Ansadi so hard that
the young man has to hold on to something. The German is a robust
man, one who springs immediately into action if something needs
to be done. He is well respected in the Iranian team. “Michael
Kielau is a very good trainer and, for all of us, a friend too,”
Yousef says.
About himself, the 25-year-old is very modest. He does not want
to be a hero. “Bam after the earthquake meant a never-ending
nightmare for me. Some things I saw there I will never forget.
But there are also other things I remember. Can there be anything
better than saving a life?”
“Sometimes I ask myself what the people I have saved are
doing now. They survived but they lost all their belongings,
their houses and many friends and relatives,” says the
young man thoughtfully.
After the exercise, the master and his dog relax in the shadow
of a big palm tree. “Corony is my baby,” the Red
Crescent man says with a big smile on his face.
“Many of my friends don’t believe it, but dogs can
be very good friends,” he says, explaining that in Iran,
a close relation with an animal is considered unusual.
“But a close attachment to a dog is fundamental to become
a good rescue dog handler,” Michael Kielau points out,
as he wipes the sweat from his face.
Increasing desperation
It is hot now in Bam. Day by day the thermometer rises a little
more. The oasis city surrounded by green palms is located in
the middle of a desert. Each day the wind blows dust and sand
across the remains of the ancient city, covering tents and tarpaulins
with a grey-reddish layer.
The shock of the immediate aftermath and the mourning period
has now often been replaced by pure desperation. The Iranian
Red Crescent, which is running 13 camps for earthquake victims,
distributes food on a monthly basis to more than 100,000 quake
victims. There is enough clean water for everyone.
Immediately after the quake, the Red Crescent distributed over
100,000 tents, blankets, cookers and kitchen sets. Red Cross
societies from Germany, Japan, Finland and Norway are running
basic health care centres and a field hospital. The government
has started to build pre-fabricated houses.
But all this cannot rebuild a broken world in a short time.
Sometimes frustration turns to violence. Stab wounds are not
uncommon in the field hospital.
“The people of Bam wish to regain the secure life they
had before the quake. Their city lies in ruins. It is now important
to encourage them to seek a new beginning”, explains
Moussa Rassouli, a 63-year-old psychology teacher at the University
of Mashhad. Like thousands of others, he has been serving in
Bam for several weeks as an IRCS volunteer.
In the last two weeks the academic has talked to many in Bam’s
tent-cities, hearing for himself their sad stories.
He is a good listener. With his questions, he helps the victims
to build a bridge to normality. “It is important for every
human being to find his rhythm for life, his own task. We try
to ensure that relatives and friends stay in the same camps
or can make contacts with the unknown family in the next tent,”
Rassouli explains.
“For the children there is a colourful programme with
games and puppet-theatre. The children have to discover after
the disaster that life can be beautiful,” he adds.
After the immense catastrophe in Bam, another quake in Bushehr
and the train explosion in Neyshabur, the Iranian Red Crescent,
supported by the Federation, has to replenish its disaster preparedness
stocks at its warehouses near Tehran.
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Rescue
dog handler Yousef Ansari and his dog Corony saved 13
lives after the earthquake (p11325)
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Michael
Kielau from the German Red Cross trains the Iranian Red
Crescent rescue dog unit (p11324)
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Bam
is still alive: A girl has turned the space in front of
her tent into a playground (p11323)
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Thanks
to his profesional background, volunteer Moussa Rassouli
has been involved in the IRCS psychosocial support programme
(p11327)
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