"Very challenging task for everyone"

“It was a very challenging task for everyone involved,” says Björn J. Gunnarsson, who came home yesterday after a rescue effort in Turkey after the earthquakes Monday last week.

A part of the Icelandic group that went to Turkey, to perform rescue work after the quakes that hit it last week, came home today.

The group was well received by family and friends at the building of the Department of Civil Protection and Emergency Management in Skaftahlíð, Iceland, at around five in the afternoon.

“This would happened except with a great collaboration between ICE-SAR Landsbjörg, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Icelandic Coast Guard,” Gunnarsson tells mbl.is.

He also thanks Icelandair for its support and the emergency room of the Landspítali National Hospital for giving the group medicines to take abroad.

The other half of the Icelandic group will be coming home at the end of the week, but the group is now in charge of all international rescue work in Turkey. Björn says that some of the group had gone to Haiti to do rescue work after the earthquake in 2010. He says that their experience has been beneficial to the group.

“We are so lucky that there were quite a number of people in this group who also went to Haiti and could therefore share their experiences and prepare those who have not been in these circumstances before,” Gunnarsson says. “

“I’ve been in a rescue team for 26 years, but I’ve never been doing rescue work abroad before, so in a way it was a huge experience, but with good training and practice you can deal with it witnessing all of this.”