"From Turkey to Yecheon"... 119 Rescue Dogs Excel in Searching for Missing Persons

35 Fire Department Rescue Dogs Dispatched 400 Times in the First Half of This Year

On the morning of the 2nd, around 11:20 AM, a missing person report was filed in Paju-si, Gyeonggi-do, stating that a nonagenarian dementia patient had left home and had not returned. Firefighters and police searched the area near the disappearance site, and at around 3:05 PM, the Northern Gyeonggi Special Response Unit deployed the search and rescue dog "Gangtaegong." Despite the heatwave exceeding 30 degrees Celsius, Taegong found the elderly man sitting with abrasions on his arm and missing shoes within an hour.

On the 6th, the National Fire Agency announced that 35 119 search and rescue dogs active nationwide were dispatched a total of 408 times to various disaster sites in the first half of this year. This represents an 11% increase compared to the same period last year.

In the first half of this year, 119 search and rescue dogs found 35 rescue targets. Among them, 13 survived.

Rescue dogs from the Republic of Korea Overseas Emergency Relief Team supporting earthquake victims in Turkey, returning through Seoul Airport in Seongnam, Gyeonggi Province.
[Photo by Yonhap News]

According to the Central 119 Rescue Headquarters of the National Fire Agency, the number of deployments of 119 search and rescue dogs to disaster sites has steadily increased since 2020. Especially last year, with an increase of seven rescue dogs, the number of dispatches rose by 30%. The number of rescue targets found increased by 55%.

119 search and rescue dogs have olfactory abilities 10,000 times better and auditory abilities 50 times better than humans. They thoroughly search areas difficult for rescue workers to enter and play an active role at various disaster sites.

In particular, these rescue dogs were deployed to the T?rkiye earthquake site in February this year, playing a significant role in finding survivors and recovering missing persons. Last month, they were also mobilized for the search operation for missing persons in Yecheon, Gyeongbuk, which suffered from heavy rain and landslides; currently, four dogs are deployed daily.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.