On September 19, 2017, Mexico suffered a magnitude 7.1 earthquake that severely affected different parts of the country, including its capital, Mexico City, where many buildings collapsed.
The following day, the Emergency Military Unit (UME) started a progressive deployment of an urban search and rescue team (USAR) with sanitary, communications and logistics capabilities. 54 troops, two of them from the Army, were sent to Mexico in a Spanish Air Force Airbus to fulfill a bilateral request for assistance by the country’s government.
Coordinated by the centralized command for the management of international teams, UME USAR team collaborated with Mexico’s emergency services to recue as many survivors and as many bodies as possible. In order to perform this task, they relied on the team of trained dogs and technical equipment, including telescopic cameras that allow the search in the debris, geophones to comb large areas, pneumatic lifting bags, hydraulic wedges and other items to move heavy equipment.
During the first 72 hours, the mission was focused on finding survivors and ensuring there wasn’t anyone left behind when moving to another location to continue the search. Afterwards, the focus was on recovering the bodies of the deceased to bring closure to the families.
UME worked mostly in a building in Alvaro Obregón street. The condition of the building, which suffered a major collapse, made necessary a specialized job to cut the concrete slabs into pieces with power tools, pull the debris out and underpin the building to reach the bodies without putting in danger the lives of the rescue team – a complex task that required plenty of time and preparation.
One of the bodies recovered was the Spaniard Jorge Gómez Varó, who worked in the building and had been missing since the earthquake. UME also assisted in the recovery of more than 40 bodies and in the search for many more.
During its time in Mexico, UME had the continued support of the Spanish Embassy and the ambassador, Luis Fernández-Cid de las Alas Pumariño, as well as several Spanish companies that provided equipment for the rescue mission.
On October 5, an airplane from the Spanish 45th Air Force Group brought the USAR team home, who was received by UME Commanding Officer, the General Director of Civil Protection and the Mexican ambassador in Spain, as well as other authorities.
That was the sixth time that UME was deployed due to an earthquake: two of the previous times were in Spain (Lorca and Melilla) and four abroad (Haití, Nepal, Ecuador and Mexico).
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