Tsunami, a mixed border collie, is on her last day of work before retiring, sniffing and sniffing the debris left by Venezuela’s devastating earthquake.
Distinguished by heterochromia, where one eye is brown and the other blue, he helped find several people trapped under rubble over the past 10 days.
Venezuela’s government announced on Thursday that “our four-legged rescue teams were able to rescue 25 people from the rubble of buildings destroyed by the earthquake.”
After many years of service, this will be Tsunami’s last mission, according to a post from K-SAR ECID, Venezuela’s canine disaster response team.
“He proves his courage and retires at the top of his game, giving his all on the field,” the group said.
Some 30,000 first responders and more than 3,300 international rescue workers are racing against time to find survivors of the deadly earthquake that struck Venezuela on June 24. But these numbers are not a significant part of this effort. Dozens of highly skilled search and rescue dogs deployed with teams from more than 20 countries are helping to turn a story of disaster into a story of survival.
The dogs, specially trained to detect human scent, spent days searching for people trapped under the rubble of about 200 buildings destroyed by two powerful earthquakes.
They can be seen in widely shared viral footage exploring inside damaged buildings, crawling under broken concrete slabs, and squeezing into tight spaces beyond the reach of human personnel.
Venezuelan National Assembly President Jorge Rodríguez said about 137 search and rescue dogs took part in the operation.
These dogs have one mission. It’s about finding survivors.
A rescue dog has emerged as a hero as international rescue teams arrive in Venezuela after a deadly earthquake. More than 100 dogs from countries including Spain, Mexico and Peru are assisting search and rescue teams.
Another member of the international investigation team, a Belgian Malinois named Bart from Argentina, helped rescue two children alive from the rubble and recover six bodies, presidential spokesman Adrien Lavier said on Tuesday. Bart is part of a military mission sent by President Javier Millay’s government to support relief efforts in Venezuela, including search and rescue dogs for the Argentine Marines.
“We would like to pay special tribute to the invaluable work of all rescue dogs,” Lavier said at a press conference.
The dogs are trained to work in complex disaster environments and carry out two important tasks together with their handlers: finding survivors and rescuing victims trapped under collapsed structures, Argentina’s Ministry of Defense said.
Rambo, another Belgian Malinois trained to find survivors, arrived in Venezuela as part of El Salvador’s Urban Search and Rescue (USAR) team.
Fernando Portillo, Rambo’s trainer and member of USAR El Salvador, said the search will begin with the dog combing the area. When Rambo detects the scent of a living human, he barks loudly to alert rescuers and direct them to the correct location.
“Rambo’s training, discipline and search abilities made him a key member of the Salvadoran contingent, assisting in rescue operations as a true four-legged hero,” El Salvador’s presidential press office said.
Some dogs ended up looking for companions.
So did Mari, a member of Mexico’s International Topos Rescue Team, who found a white Maltese dog alive under the rubble. Rescue worker Miguel Ángel García told CNN that Mali also assisted in the direct search that led to the recovery of six bodies.
Other dogs participating in the 24-hour rescue effort included border collies Ollie and Balam, members of the Mexican Red Cross. Dastan is a Belgian Malinois who works for the Bogota Fire Department. Ibi and Tina join the rescue team from Spain.
On Friday, Venezuela’s acting president Delcy Rodríguez honored the dogs by awarding them the title of “Canine Heroes of Venezuela” at a ceremony in La Guaira, the coastal state hardest hit by the earthquake.
The dogs recognized included four from Slovakia, five from Spain, six from Jordan and Portugal, and eight from the Czech Republic, in addition to the four accompanying the Colombian rescue team.
At least 2,954 people have died as a result of the devastating earthquake, the government announced on social media on Saturday. There is no official tally of the number of missing people.
