Head Of Israeli Delegation To Miami: ‘We’re Here To Save Lives, We Have Advanced Technology’

NEW YORK (VINnews) — Oz Jino, commander of the Israeli Home Front rescue workers who are working at the site of the Surfside tower collapse, spoke in an interview with the Walla site about the role of his workers. “We are altogether 18 soldiers and officers from the Home Front who came to the site of the collapse. We’re here to save lives or G-d forbid to remove bodies or for any other task required. We have advanced intelligence capabilities which enable us to help the Americans to focus the rescue work. Our engineers are specialists in rescue engineering and have a lot of experience of such situations.”

Jino was asked what was visible at the site and said: “I see a building whose west facade is unscathed. Whoever looks from the west would not see that anything happened. The other side is shocking- 13 floors which collapsed one onto the other into the basement. Seven floors are above ground and six floors collapsed underground. Its a complex situation, with very few pockets of air and therefore less chances of survival.

“There is a lot of heavy engineering equipment. The Americans are here with huge forces and their elite rescue teams together with local firemen. They put together an enormous logistic effort. We are integrated into the American teams, we are helping them also by sending back to Israel information using advanced technologies. Our advantage is our ability to assess the building using top-level information systems from our base in Israel.

“At this very moment our team are working on one of the apartments, there are two groups above the apartment but we have a limited time at the site, we’ll be here until midnight. We haven’t yet extricated bodies but yesterday a body was extricated and just a few minutes ago another was extricated. We believe we will see the site more clearly in the next 24 hours.”

Jino expressed optimism that people could still be saved: “it’s raining a lot here and this allows water to seep inside which could enable people to survive, but the collapse happened in a way which made less pockets of air inside. Despite the way things look we are assuming that people trapped inside could be saved and working meticulously to find them. For us as Jews the dignity of the dead is no less important than that of the living.”