Supporting search and rescue teams responding to the Türkiye and Syria Earthquake
Abbas Dhanani and Simon Tommaon of Serve On with Jangala’s MD Rich Thanki
Organisation: Serve On
Location: Türkiye
Sector: Emergency Response
Deployed: February 2023
On Monday 6 February, two major earthquakes hit Türkiye and Syria, the first of which registered as 7.8 magnitude and the second one, ten hours later, measured 7.5. In the immediate aftermath, rescue teams and first responders rushed to the affected areas to help the hundreds of thousands of people affected by the disaster. The earthquakes caused widespread building and infrastructure collapse and affected approximately 24 million people across over 40,000 square miles. At least 56,000 people were killed by these two events, with a further 100,000 injured or displaced (Reuters) and 400,000 impacted (UN).
Big Box in use at Adana Airport
Serve On was one such organisation responding to the emergency. Based in the UK, Serve On are a highly trained team of experts available 24 hours a day to save lives by responding to disasters, anywhere in the world. Deploying within hours of disaster, Serve On carry out critical, life-saving work to rescue people from the aftermath.
Jangala sent Serve On into the field armed with two Big Boxes to help with immediate Wi-Fi for their communications needs. They set up Big Box immediately at Adana Airport, so that not only the Serve On team could use the Wi-Fi for their coordination efforts, but all incoming emergency responders landing in Türkiye had immediate access to Wi-Fi.
Over three days, 110 people from different teams accessed the Wi-Fi.
Timeline:
February 6: Earthquake hits Türkiye and Syria
February 7: Serve On contact Jangala
February 8: Jangala deliver Big Box and train Serve On first responders.
February 9: Serve On team fly out to Türkiye
February 10: Over 80 people get online over two hours for intense coordination activities
February 11-13: A further 30 people get online
February 15: The Serve On team return to the UK
“I saw the Jangala Box (from Serve on) last night in Adana Airport and I must say I’m deeply impressed by the technology. That’s such a good device to support the humanitarian community and also the affected population. [...] By setting up the system, arriving teams had the possibility to get online which made our job of coordinating the incoming teams so much easier and efficient.”