KUCHING, Oct 2: In response to the catastrophic earthquake and tsunami that struck the city of Palu in Sulawesi, Malaysia’s Fire and Rescue Department (Bomba) will deploy its canine (K9) unit to assist in search and rescue (SAR) mission.
Bomba K9’s officer-in-charge Supt Donny Chap said his team was ready and was just waiting for the “green light” to depart Malaysia.
As this is a heavy mission, he said two members would be deployed together with their canines from his unit.
“Our K9 team, together with four members from the Special Tactical Operation and Rescue Team of Malaysia (STORM) and one member from Hazardous Material Unit Team (Hazmat) are ready to be deployed anytime,” Donny told DayakDaily, adding that this is a joint mission with the National Disaster Management Agency (NADMA).
“For the first deployment, we will send two dogs with handlers. The rest will standby in Malaysia. We can only send two for now as we need to consider our limited resources for Special Malaysia Disaster Assistance and Rescue Team (SMART) and STORM teams doing their SAR.”
Palu was overwhelmed by waves from a tsunami that was set off by a 7.5 magnitude earthquake on Sep 28. The earthquake triggered tsunami waves of up to 5m in height, causing a major disaster in the city of about 350,000 residents. — DayakDaily
