A 24-member rescue team sent by Vietnam’s Ministry of Public Security has arrived in the southeastern Turkish city of Adiyaman to engage in search and rescue operations for victims of the terrible earthquake that struck Turkey, along with Syria, earlier this week.

Adiyaman is among the Turkish localities suffering the most from the magnitude-7.8 earthquake that hit the two countries on February 6, the ministry said.

The team reached the torn city early on Saturday morning, one day after they touched down at Istanbul International Airport on Friday, bringing along 15 tons of rescue equipment.

Through an arrangement with the Disaster and Emergency Management Presidency of Turkey, they began working in an area of collapsed buildings on 531 Street in Adiyaman, where local authorities said 15 people could have been trapped under the rubble.

“Since arriving at the scene, we have conducted a site survey and worked out a meticulous rescue plan to search for victims in the debris using specialized equipment, in the hope of finding any survivors after five days of the horrible quake,” a team member said.

Despite a lot of difficult conditions, including a temperature of six degrees Celsius, the whole team is trying their best to fulfill their tasks, the member added.

This is the first time that the public security ministry has sent a rescue police team on an international mission in a place far away from Vietnamese territory, the Vietnam News Agency said.

The disastrous earthquake has affected about 13 million people across 10 Turkish provinces, where national emergency has been declared, according to Turkey’s Anadolu News Agency.

The disaster has so far killed over 28,000 people in both Turkey and Syria, The Guardian reported on Sunday.

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