Javier Zubieta Sesma it’s a Navarrese volunteer that these days he puts all his efforts into find missing people for the DANA in Valencia. More precisely, in the Picaña and Paiporta regionone of the most affected by the disaster. He arrived early Thursday morning with a team of volunteer rescuers from Urban Search and Rescue (USAR).
After seeing on the news disaster that DANA had left behind The night from Monday to Tuesday last week, he didn’t think about it. I knew I had to go help those affected. “What motivated me to come Valence It was knowing that I was ready to help these people and that I might be able to find their loved ones,” he says.
In Valence came across the story of horror experienced by neighbors affected by DANA. “They tell me that everything happened very quickly and that in a few minutes, they saw their houses destroyed and transformed into mountains of garbage in the streets,” he says, upset. And he asks for help so that, little by little, “they can rebuild their lives and begin the phases of emotional recovery.”
Since he landed Valencian landshis days have paradoxically become a kind of atypical routine. This is due to the extraordinary nature of the work he must accomplish. And also because of its hardness.
“Our day starts early. We do a briefing by doing a briefing to coordinate and we divided ourselves into different work sectors and teams of four people,” he explains. Once in the work area The work of searching for the bodies of people begins which may have been trapped in garages and underpasses.
And this is how his hours unfold: “We advance through the streets of the assigned sector,” he says. And they go to places where they feel they can find missing people. “We entered these garages where the water was drained at night to be able to access them,” he explains.
Around 6 or 6:30 p.m., when night falls, it is time to retreat. After a hard day’s work, these volunteers They need to rest so they can continue working the next day.
While almost a week has passed since DANA, he is aware that the possibility of finding people trapped alive It’s practically impossible. “The first day you start with the research workand even more in my case being the same Thursday, you have the hope of finding someone alive, but as the days go by you know that it starts to be more complicated or even impossible”, he laments.
Zubieta He insists he is focused on doing his job well. “The only way to move forward is somehow block this emotional component“, he admits. But he is not made of stone: “I would be lying to you if I told you that we haven’t cried these days.” In this sense, he emphasizes that the members of his team and himself are human beings: “We break too.”
In this interview time He remembers the scene that struck him the most these days: “All the rescues were tough, but the one that struck me the most was that of an elderly couple who died in a car. We found them holding hands.
