MANDALAY /Myanmar/, April 2. /TASS/. Russia’s Emergencies Ministry’s dog handlers examine several thousand square meters of debris every day after the powerful earthquake struck Myanmar’s Mandalay, said Ilya Zaslavsky, head of the cynological service of Russia’s Emergencies Ministry’s State Central Airmobile Rescue Team (Tsentrospas).
"We usually manage [to survey] several thousand square meters every day. As a rule, we take dogs to examine each location," he said.
Zaslavsky added that dogs can only work for about 15-20 minutes if the outdoor temperatures are high. "In general, [dogs can search for survivors] for 15-20 minutes, the heat is the biggest challenge. It is plus 40 [degrees Celsius or about 104 degrees Fahrenheit] there, even hotter if you are in the sun. It means that an overheated dog will not perform well, the accuracy of findings will decrease. You need to stop in time, take the dog to a cool place and let it rest," he said.
Russian teams with search-and-rescue dogs inspected debris of a five-story hotel, only one floor of which remained after the earthquake, a TASS correspondent reported from the scene. One of the working dogs detected the presence of a body buried under the rubble. "Unfortunately, any survivors must already be dead by now. The dog showed the place from where the dead bodies had just been removed, as it detected specific odor that lingered there. It also showed the place of other bodies’ possible presence. Now our rescuers will dismantle the rubble and pull out [the bodies of dead people]," he said.