Students trapped by avalanche for 39 hours rescued dramatically

Seventeen passengers from Atatürk University set out in a minibus from Erzurum to Rize before being snowed in by an avalanche as they passed Ovit Mountain. The road on which they were trapped is reportedly not open between 5 p.m. and 7 a.m. due to dangerous conditions, but the driver of the minibus ignored the signs and decided to use the road.

A crisis management center was established by Rize Governor Seyfullah Hacımüftüoğlu to manage the rescue operations with the assistance of military commanders from nearby brigades and Rize Mayor Halil Bakırcı. Both civil and military rescue teams worked to reach the stranded student group, who remained under snow for 39 hours, before eventually finding them Saturday night. A rescue team including Rize Health Directorate head İsmail Tepe and two members of the Kaçkar Mountaineering Club reached the minibus and gave the victims food and blankets.

To monitor the rescue operations more closely, Transportation Minister Binali Yildirim and Public Works and Housing Minister Mustafa Demir went first to Trabzon by plane and then on to Rize by car. Answering reporters' questions, Yıldırım, at the Trabzon airport on Saturday, said that instead of the Artvin-Gümüşhane road the minibus' driver used a prohibited road passing near Ovit Mountain. The minister avoided commenting on the driver's lapse of judgment.

After 39 hours in a snowbound minibus near Ovit Mountain, 18 people, most of whom are university students in Erzurum, were rescued by local search and rescue teams.

He also confirmed that rescue teams from Erzurum and Rize were sent out immediately after the news came that a group was stuck between Erzurum’s İspir and Rize’s İkizdere districts.

Communication with the stranded group was provided by cell phones during the operation. Before the rescue team reached them, some students told their parents they felt very cold in their phone conversations. To prevent another avalanche accident, helicopters were not allowed to approach the place where the minibus was stuck, thus the rescue team had to reach the group on foot. The victims were carried out to the temporary crisis management center, located in Rize’s Çamlık village.

The students were reunited with their families in the crisis management center and told reporters about their snowed-in experiences. “When we had lost hope, we saw the rescue team. A helicopter came also but could not land due to the risk of causing another avalanche,” said Yavuz Kapısız, a passenger. Since the group thought that the trip to Rize would not take long, they did not bring adequate food with them, Kapısız added.

Saliha Kaşıkçı, another rescued student, noted that the passengers had warned the driver that the route was closed, but he ignored their warnings and drove on. “When we told him that the way is closed, he just said ‘they will open it’. After the incident, we reproached him but there was nothing left to do. We were under snow,” she said.

Another student, Deniz Hacıhafızoğlu, said after rescue teams failed to reach them he thought they would die like Muhsin Yazıcıoğlu, a politician who died after his helicopter crashed in a snow-covered mountainous area in March after rescue crews were unable to locate the crash site in time.

After health checks, the rescued travelers were released from the crisis management center.

A rescue team traveling from İspir to the Ovit Mountain area to join the rescue operations was also stuck in an avalanche on the way and was rescued, Anatolia reported on Sunday.

Seventeen passengers and the driver of a minibus which were snowed in by an avalanche as they passed Ovit Mountain, between Rize and Erzurum, were rescued on Saturday night after 39 hours of being trapped.

Landslide kills four in Giresun and Trabzon

A couple in Trabzon and two people in Giresun lost their lives in landslides triggered by heavy rains on Saturday. In the Giresun incident two additional people were trapped by the landslide; one was able to free himself while the other was extracted from the wreckage by rescue crews.

Heavy rains in Trabzon caused a boulder to crush the house of Turan Ayşe Kurt, in Trabzon’s Değirmendere neighborhood. The couple was killed immediately. After eyewitnesses called the authorities, rescue teams came to the scene and removed the boulder from the house, extricating the Kurts’ bodies in a three-hour operation. The bodies were brought to the Trabzon Forensic Medicine Institution.

Also Saturday, a family of four was buried under wreckage in their home in Giresun’s Yağlıdere district, also by a landslide. Mustafa Özdemir was able to wrest free of the wreckage but his wife, Fadime Özdemir, had to be extracted by rescue teams and was carried to a nearby hospital since she was badly hurt. The couple’s two children, Güler and Seher Özdemir, were later found crushed in the remains of the house.