A fireman belonging to the Almuñécar fire service has decided to go to Beirut to help out, searching for people buried under the rubble.

“I just couldn’t stay sitting at home,” he explained. He says he has the motivation and the hope of finding people trapped under fallen masonry. He admitted that it would be difficult with so many building collapses, but he knows that with their training he is prepared.

However, it not only about pulling people out alive, but also locating bodies so that families can bury their dead.

Fireman Cabrero belongs to an NGO team of volunteers called GERCCMA, which is working against the clock to get to the stricken city with all its equipment and begin work. He left on a flight from Málaga yesterday afternoon. His squad mates are from Málaga and Sevilla; three from the former and one from the latter, all of whom belong to municipal fire services.

GERCCMA has fifteen members who carry out training exercises together, fitting them in with their day-to-day work at their local fire stations. They also have four rescue dogs to help locate people under the rubble in disaster areas. In fact, without them, their human counterparts would have a much more complicated task; probably an impossible one, when it comes to finding somebody before they succumb, entombed in what was once their homes.

For D. Cabrero, this is not his first rescue mission as he operated in the aftermath of the earthquake in Puebla, Mexico in 2017.

Lastly, flying anywhere is no simple task in these times with health restrictions both from the point of departure and the destination country… as well as any connection flights in between.

(News: Almunecar, Costa Tropical, Granada, Andalucia)