Searching for earthquake survivors with "snake eyes"... Blue sky rescue teams from all over the country have their own specialties, with "instructor level" experts in sonar and ropes. Folk | Blue sky rescue teams | experts

In the past decade, China's civilian rescue forces, represented by blue sky rescue teams from various regions, have gradually developed and grown, becoming an important emergency rescue force in many major domestic and international disasters. During interviews with reporters, it was found that many blue sky rescue teams from various regions are "versatile" with expertise in specific fields such as surface rescue, underwater detection, rope high-altitude rescue, and earthquake demolition, allowing them to excel in completing tasks during the rescue process.

Quickly locate the missing vehicle

Both sonar and ropes have "instructor level" experts

The Foshan Blue Sky Rescue Team is a non-profit organization that adheres to free rescue. It was founded by team leader Wan Wenhui in August 2014. The team is composed of a group of outdoor sports enthusiasts who are enthusiastic about social welfare, and currently has 50 members. In the past nine years, the team has successively participated in more than 800 times of flood rescue and search operations in Minqing, Guangxi Yangshuo, Jiangxi Poyang Lake, Chaonan, Yangchun, Xinyi, Guangdong, 60 large-scale government exercises and activities, and more than 300 times of disaster prevention and mitigation training in Fujian, Guangxi Yangshuo, Jiangxi Poyang Lake, Guangdong Chaonan, Yangchun, Xinyi and other places.

Wan Wenhui told reporters that the strongest expertise of the Foshan Blue Sky Rescue Team is sonar detection technology. In the 2018 Chongqing Wanzhou bus falling into the river accident, it was they who rushed to Wanzhou with sonar equipment and locked the specific position of the bus underwater through the sonar device. The team's underwater robots also entered the interior of the bus to take photos, helping other emergency rescue personnel on the front line.

Another strength of the team is high-altitude rope rescue. Wan Wenhui said that on an afternoon in September 2017, she received a distress call stating that two people had lost contact after driving an off-road vehicle up the mountain. After arriving at the scene, Wan Wenhui judged that the off-road vehicle should have fallen off a cliff near the top of Conghua Paradise. The team members carried ropes to rescue them, and when they followed the ropes to the foot of the mountain, they indeed discovered the fallen vehicle. In the end, the team successfully rescued the two missing people.

"Our team has gathered many rescue experts from within the province," Wan Wenhui told reporters. Members of the Foshan Blue Sky Rescue Team need to be over 25 and under 50 years old, physically healthy, have time, economic foundation, vehicles, skills, have a radio operation certificate, and a red cross emergency certificate, which are only the "most basic requirements.". In fact, many members of the Foshan Blue Sky Rescue Team have reached the level of instructors. "Many members of the team have served as instructors for the ERE emergency rescue expert system, including first aid instructors, rope instructors, diving instructors, drone instructors, sonar instructors, etc. They are all outdoor experts."

Simultaneously training in water and land rescue skills

Using Snake Eyes to Search for Earthquake Survivors

The Dongguan Blue Sky Rescue Team is mainly composed of party members and veterans. Similar to other blue sky rescue teams in Guangdong, their strengths are mainly focused on water rescue, including flood rescue, urban waterlogging, diving rescue, etc. Captain Zhang Jiajie told him that every weekend from April to October, they conduct water rescue training, as well as earthquake rescue, diving rescue, rope mountain and wilderness search and rescue. "We hope that team members can develop in multiple ways so that they can protect themselves to the maximum extent on site and rescue trapped individuals."

The Dongguan Blue Sky Rescue Team has appeared at flood rescue sites multiple times. For example, in the 2021 Henan flood, they traveled to Zhengzhou, Xinxiang, and Weihui, deploying rubber boats to participate in material transportation and transferring 116 people, totaling more than 420 people.

The team members are proficient in using earthquake search and rescue equipment such as "snake eyes" and dismantling equipment. Zhang Jiajie introduced that after the earthquake in Türkiye in February this year, two groups of members of the team came to Malatiya, Türkiye, to rescue the buried people in a collapsed residential building. "The team members used life detectors, shouts, whistles and other methods to search for signs of life at this rescue site."

It is reported that the "snake eye" is a search instrument, scientifically known as the "optical life detector", which uses light reflection for life detection. The main body of the "snake eye" is very flexible, like a snake skin tube used for drainage, which can twist freely in a pile of rubble. There are small probes in front of the instrument that can penetrate extremely small gaps for detection, similar to camera instruments, transmitting information back. This way, rescue team members can use observers to see the situation deep in the rubble clearly.

Zhang Jiajie introduced that they will regularly organize team members to participate in earthquake rescue drills. In April this year, 18 team members participated in relevant training courses and completed training in four subjects: debris search and rescue, support demolition, top support fixation, and inclined building ropes.

Deep level rescue at the collapse site

The dismantling equipment and personnel are both "professional level"

When encountering situations such as earthquakes, floods, fires, etc. that can easily trap personnel, it is very important to open rescue and escape routes through demolition methods. In terms of demolition, both the Beijing Blue Sky Rescue Team and the Qingdao Red Cross Blue Sky Rescue Center have strong capabilities.

After the earthquake in Türkiye at the beginning of this year, on the evening of February 6, the Beijing Blue Sky Rescue Team issued a report notice on Türkiye's earthquake rescue and started the national preparedness work. This is not the first time that the team has called for international rescue. On April 25, 2015, an 8.1 magnitude earthquake occurred in Nepal, and the Beijing Blue Sky Rescue Team immediately activated the emergency rescue system. 83 volunteers from all over the country were urgently dispatched to Nepal to carry out international rescue operations. Every time they go to the disaster area, the team members can use skilled search and rescue techniques to search for trapped individuals.

The Qingdao Red Cross Blue Sky Rescue Center has nine types of natural disaster rescue capabilities, including mountain, rope, shore, rapids and floods, wildfires, vehicle accident disposal, pre hospital emergency, public safety diving, and building collapse. As of November last year, the team has 2 sets of earthquake disaster rescue equipment, totaling 273 pieces, 6 ISARA International Search and Rescue Alliance earthquake search and rescue technical coaches, and 20 intermediate certified members of the National Earthquake Emergency Search and Rescue Training Base.

During the Türkiye earthquake earlier this year, the team carried a variety of professional equipment, such as life detectors, hydraulic power stations, crushing picks, rock drilling picks, cutting saws, generators, etc. The team also carried hydraulic dismantling equipment suitable for deep rescue, which can gradually penetrate the floor slab and rescue people trapped deep.