Greek rescuer saves little girl ‘just like his father’

HATAY

The father of the Greek rescue specialist, who pulled a 7-year-old girl out of the rubble in Hatay, one of the provinces most affected by the Feb. 6’s deadly earthquakes, was also found out to rescue a child in the 1995 tremor in Greece, local media has reported.

Konstantinos Nikas, a member of the Greek special disaster management team (EMAK), burst into tears after pulling 7-year-old Fatma out of the rubble in the İskenderun district on Feb. 7.

It turned out that Nikas’ father also saved a child in the 6.1-magnitude earthquake that hit Greece in 1995.

The teammates of the young rescue specialist stated that his father was “looking at Konstantinos with pride from heaven,” while one of his father’s friends tweeted, “When I saw Nikas saving the little child in Türkiye, I remembered how my friend, late General Panagiotis Nikas, saved little Andreas in the Aigio earthquake.”

Moral support from Greece to Türkiye also continues as the country’s leading daily Kathimerini published a cartoon that read: “We are all Turks.” The state television ERT also started its morning news with a Turkish song, “Şevval Sam’s Ben Seni Sevduğumi,” on Feb. 8.

Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis, on his part, also said in a statement that “Greece and Türkiye are neighbors who need to help each other in difficult times.”

The self-sacrificing efforts of the foreign teams who came to the quake-hit region are greatly appreciated as they have given a lot of good news so far.

More than 1,100 search and rescue personnel and over 70 specially trained dogs participate in the rescue efforts within the scope of the Civil Protection Mechanism of the European Union.