Her name is Persian and she is the oldest rescue dog in the Military Emergency Unit (UME).. Along with 47 troops and three other canine companions from the 4th Battalion of the UME, based in Zaragoza, Persa has been deployed in Morocco to help search for the victims of the earthquake.. The earthquake that devastated the provinces of Al Houz on Friday, which includes Marrakech, Tarundant, Ouarzarzat, Chichaua, Azilal and its surroundings, and which reached an intensity of 7 on the Richter scale, is one of the most intense in recent history. from the neighboring country. It has already claimed almost 3,000 lives.
Corporal Julio Antonio Redondo guides Persa in his search for survivors in the rubble of Imi N'Tala. The intense smell of death that oozes from the ruins makes people fear that the people who are buried under their houses are no longer in the world of the living.. Even so, both – like the entire UME team – continue tirelessly insisting on every nook and cranny and putting all their effort into every centimeter of brush.
Imi N'Tala has been buried by the mountain and the houses have blocked the road, preventing access to the following villages. The landscape is imposing, full of gorges, now accentuated by the void left by the homes. The place, at almost 2,000 meters high, is part of the Tubkal National Geopark, the highest peak in Morocco at 4,167 meters.. It is one of the most followed routes for trekking lovers.
Persa and Corporal Redondo, accredited as a canine guide since 2009, are working under these conditions.. Redondo has several missions abroad and already has experience in high mountains, having participated in the rescue efforts during the earthquake in Nepal in April 2015.. Persa has worked on other searches before and is trained to act in major disasters.
“Persa is a Belgian Malinois, she is seven years old and is the oldest member of the Zaragoza team,” the corporal describes to his partner.. To be prepared for these missions, “training is daily, from Monday to Friday and even some weekends.”. It specializes in searching for snow avalanches and debris, such as earthquakes or attacks.. It can also work on banks, after a flood, when the water level drops it can detect if people have remained,” adds Redondo.
Persian's specialty is finding living people. The adobe that is built in the Amazigh villages of the Atlas does not leave any living spaces and collapses like a sand castle, preventing air chambers from being created.
Corporal Redondo and Persa search for survivors in Imi N'Tala.
But as they say in the EMU, “hope is the last thing to be lost”. As an example, they mention the earthquake in Turkey last February, the last one in which Spanish specialists intervened, when they managed to rescue people alive seven days after the landslide.
“We train these dogs only to look for live people. But there are canine guides who prepare what we call dual dogs, which can detect both corpses or human remains and live people,” explains Redondo.. “The dog detects the cells, the breath, the smell that a person emanates when they are alive. “When a person dies, in approximately one hour the effluvia begins to emanate and the body decomposes and the dogs are able to detect that difference.”