the essential
A group of firefighters from Tarn joined the Fra-10 unit this Monday, specializing in intervention in “severely degraded environments”. They will soon take the plane to Mayotte, hit by a cyclone on Saturday.
Firefighters from Tarn left this Monday to join the Fra-10 unit, which brings together more than 60 French firefighters, and are preparing to reach Mayotte, hit on Saturday by a devastating cyclone. The archipelago, where precarious housing affects at least a third of the population, has been devastated. Around 100,000 people were housed in “unsound dwellings”, notably in tin huts.
Mission: search for victims
This Monday, around ten Tarn firefighters prepared to join their colleagues from the south of France in Marseille, where 65 firefighters are meeting. The mission of the Fra-10 unit, whose specialty is intervention in “highly degraded environments”, will be essentially based on the search for victims in the rubble caused by the cyclone. Commander Benoit Camp, who will be deputy to the detachment leader as part of this mission, explains: “we will have with us numerous materials, to clear, extract, cut… We will also put in place temporary covers for homes.”
Early this Monday, the Tarn firefighters mobilized to prepare for their departure. At the Castres rescue center, Commander Camp specifies: “We are taking a real command post, but also ventilation equipment, lighting, fuel… We are going to make a stop at Mazamet, to collect the tarpaulin equipment.” Among the firefighters who are preparing to fly to Mayotte, we find representatives from the emergency centers of Castres, Lavaur, Albi, Carmaux, Gaillac and Lacaune. “Two of us intervened on the same type of mission in Saint-Martin in 2018,” recalls Commander Camp.
Departure for the island could take place as early as Wednesday. At the same time, Secours Populaire du Tarn launched an appeal for donations: https://don.secourspopulaire.fr/urgence
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