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Photos: L.A. County search-and-rescue personnel help Turkey earthquake victims

Displaced people sit around camp fires surrounded by destroyed buildings in the dark
People displaced by the magnitude 7.8 earthquake sit around campfires surrounded by destroyed buildings in Adiyaman, Turkey.
(Tom Nicholson / For The Times)
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At 9 p.m. Sunday night in California, the call went out to Los Angeles County Fire Department Urban Search and Rescue members to see who was available for immediate deployment after the devastating magnitude 7.8 earthquake in Turkey.

Some 77 members — firefighters, structural engineers, paramedics, doctors, technical experts and six K9 team dogs — assembled at the headquarters in Pacoima. Just before midnight they were wheels-up, winging their way to Turkey as part of a sprawling, 141,000-strong search-and-rescue effort that has drawn teams from around the world even as the death toll Saturday topped 28,000 in the region; potentially thousands more remain unaccounted for under the rubble.

In the days since the earthquake, those teams, along with countless local volunteers, medical professionals, rescue personnel and miners, have become a ubiquitous presence in virtually every street of Turkey’s ravaged southern provinces, working 24-hour shifts to locate and extricate survivors or bring out the dead.

Several people in hard hats help carry out a person on a stretch from rubble at night
Turkish personnel work alongside Los Angeles County Fire Department Urban Search and Rescue team members to remove a mother and her daughter, not pictured, after they were trapped for 117 hours inside their home in Adiyaman, Turkey.
(Tom Nicholson / For The Times)
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A man opens his mouth and holds his helmet
Turkish lead medic Dogan Can reacts after the workers removed a surviving mother and daughter from the ruins of their home.
(Tom Nicholson / For The Times)
People in hard hats and head lamps work amid rubble at night.
Turkish and L.A. County rescue personnel help remove a girl from the ruined home.
(Tom Nicholson / For The Times)
An aerial view of damaged buildings and rubble in the streets
The destruction in Adiyaman, Turkey.
(Tom Nicholson / For The Times)
People in hard hats step over rubble amid buildings in the daytime.
The L.A. County team members arrive at the site of a destroyed building in Adiyaman.
(Tom Nicholson / For The Times)
A resident in a head covering holds out her hands in front of her destroyed house.
A resident in front of her destroyed home in Adiyaman.
(Tom Nicholson / For The Times)
A search and rescue team member stands amid rubble and twisted metal tubes.
An L.A. County team member uses a listening device while searching for survivors amid ruins in Adiyaman.
(Tom Nicholson / For The Times)
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