International Rescue and Recovery Operations
In late 2004 and early 2005, members of ZAKA provided assistance in Thailand, Sri Lanka, India and Indonesia in the aftermath of the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake. Forensic teams reportedly dubbed the group "the team that sleeps with the dead" because they toiled nearly 24 hours a day at Buddhist pagodas in Thailand that had been transformed into morgues to identify those who died in the tsunami. The experience of ZAKA members, who reportedly see 38 bodies a week on average in Israel, helped the Israeli forensic team to identify corpses faster than many of the other forensic teams that operated in Thailand in the aftermath of the disaster, which placed them in high demand with grieving families.
In February 2007, ZAKA sent a 10-person search and rescue team, consisting primarily of rescue divers, to Paris to search for a missing Israeli Defense official. The mission is being funded by the Defense Ministry at an expected cost of $80,000.
In November 2008, ZAKA volunteers went to Mumbai, India following terrorist attacks that included a Jewish center among its targets.
Following the 2010 Haiti earthquake, a six-man ZAKA International Search and Rescue Unit delegation arrived in Haiti to assist with search and recovery efforts. Working with the Mexican military delegation and Jewish volunteers from Mexico, eight students trapped under the rubble of the collapsed eight-storey Port-au-Prince University building were rescued on the first day after their arrival.
Teams of ZAKA volunteers were sent to Japan in March 2011 to assist in search-and-rescue after the devastating earthquake and subsequent tsunami.
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Famous quotes containing the words rescue, recovery and/or operations:
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