Topos de Tlatelolco
Encyclopedia
The Técnicos en Urgencias Médicas, Seguridad y Rescate 19 de Septiembre (September 19th
1985 Mexico City earthquake
The 1985 Mexico City earthquake, a magnitude 8.0 earthquake that struck Mexico City on the early morning of 19 September 1985 at around 7:19 AM , caused the deaths of at least 10,000 people and serious damage to the greater Mexico City Area. The complete seismic event...

 Emergency Medical, Safety and Rescue Technicians
), better known as the Topos de Tlatelolco (Tlatelolco
Tlatelolco (Mexico City)
Tlatelolco is an area in the Cuauhtémoc borough of Mexico City, centered on the Plaza de las Tres Culturas, a square surrounded on three sides by an excavated Aztec archaeological site, a 17th century church called Templo de Santiago, a former convent, and office complexes that used to belong to...

 Moles
Mole (animal)
Moles are small cylindrical mammals adapted to a subterranean lifestyle. They have velvety fur; tiny or invisible ears and eyes; and short, powerful limbs with large paws oriented for digging. The term is especially and most properly used for the true moles, those of the Talpidae family in the...

) is a professional Mexican rescue team.

Composition

Their specialty is searching for victims under the debris of collapsed buildings and giving first aid. One of the group's original founders, Hector "El Chino" Méndez states that one of the things that distinguishes his group from others is that they have the "balls to go in where no one else will" (huevos de entrar adonde los demás no quieren).

Today, the organization has an average of about forty members plus search and rescue dog
Search and rescue dog
The use of dogs in search and rescue is a valuable component in wilderness tracking, natural disasters, mass casualty events, and in locating missing people. Dedicated handlers and well-trained dogs are required for the use of dogs to be effective in search efforts...

s which they train themselves. The group, along with the Civil Protection Agency of Mexico, issues certificates and sponsors technical degrees in areas related to the field. When a volunteer enlists, he or she is trained in areas such as rescue strategies, managing collapsed structures and risk management. The main group is in Mexico City
Mexico City
Mexico City is the Federal District , capital of Mexico and seat of the federal powers of the Mexican Union. It is a federal entity within Mexico which is not part of any one of the 31 Mexican states but belongs to the federation as a whole...

 but there are branches in other parts of the country such as Poza Rica
Poza Rica
Poza Rica is a city and its surrounding municipalityin the Mexican state of Veracruz. Its name means "rich pool", because it was a place known for its abundance of fish. In this century oil was discovered in the area. It has since been almost completely extracted...

, Veracruz
Veracruz, Veracruz
Veracruz, officially known as Heroica Veracruz, is a major port city and municipality on the Gulf of Mexico in the Mexican state of Veracruz. The city is located in the central part of the state. It is located along Federal Highway 140 from the state capital Xalapa, and is the state's most...

, Cancún
Cancún
Cancún is a city of international tourism development certified by the UNWTO . Located on the northeast coast of Quintana Roo in southern Mexico, more than 1,700 km from Mexico City, the Project began operations in 1974 as Integrally Planned Center, a pioneer of FONATUR Cancún is a city of...

 and Chihuahua
Chihuahua, Chihuahua
The city of Chihuahua is the state capital of the Mexican state of Chihuahua. It has a population of about 825,327. The predominant activity is industry, including domestic heavy, light industries, consumer goods production, and to a smaller extent maquiladoras.-History:It has been said that the...

. Recently, a foreign branch was started in Buenos Aires
Buenos Aires
Buenos Aires is the capital and largest city of Argentina, and the second-largest metropolitan area in South America, after São Paulo. It is located on the western shore of the estuary of the Río de la Plata, on the southeastern coast of the South American continent...

, Argentina
Argentina
Argentina , officially the Argentine Republic , is the second largest country in South America by land area, after Brazil. It is constituted as a federation of 23 provinces and an autonomous city, Buenos Aires...

.

The group maintains ties with the International Rescue and Assistance League in France and the United Firemen without Frontiers in Spain. It also has associates in the United States, El Salvador, Bolivia, Peru, Germany and Indonesia. Within Mexico, the group coordinates with social organizations and government agencies such as the Secretary of the Navy
Secretary of the Navy (Mexico)
In Mexico, the Secretary of the Navy is a member of the federal executive cabinet with responsibility for managing the country's navy and marine forces. The secretary is appointed by the President of the Republic and heads the Secretariat of the Navy...

, the Secretary of Defense and the Secretary of the Interior
Secretary of the Interior (Mexico)
The Mexican Secretary of the Interior is the head of the Secretariat of the Interior, concerned with the country's internal affairs, the presentation of the president's bills to Congress, their publication and certain issues of national security. The country's main intelligence agency, CISEN,...

. However, their longest association is with the government of Mexico City, whose professional ambulance corps along with the Mexican Red Cross assisted with the initial training of rescue dogs.

History

The organization began when a group of youths decided to help with rescue efforts in the aftermath of the 1985 Mexico City earthquake
1985 Mexico City earthquake
The 1985 Mexico City earthquake, a magnitude 8.0 earthquake that struck Mexico City on the early morning of 19 September 1985 at around 7:19 AM , caused the deaths of at least 10,000 people and serious damage to the greater Mexico City Area. The complete seismic event...

. They mostly assisted by searching collapsed buildings for victims, risking their own lives in the process. None of the initial volunteers had any training, experience or equipment, but now the Topos are a professional team which have aided in rescue efforts in Mexico and various countries.

The group was formally organized in February 1986, five months after the earthquake, in part because Mexico did not have any formal search and rescue training or services.

Since 1985, the Topos have assisted rescue and recovery efforts in over twenty-two countries. On volunteers´uniforms one can see written where s/he has been to help. One of the first was the 1986 San Salvador earthquake, only one year after the earthquake that was the impetus for the group's founding. Within Mexico, they have assisted after disasters in Manzanillo
Manzanillo, Colima
The name Manzanillo refers to the city as well as its surrounding municipality in the Mexican state of Colima. The city, located on the Pacific Ocean, contains Mexico's busiest port. Manzanillo was the third port created by the Spanish in the Pacific during the New Spain period...

, Puebla
Puebla
Puebla officially Estado Libre y Soberano de Puebla is one of the 31 states which, with the Federal District, comprise the 32 Federal Entities of Mexico. It is divided in 217 municipalities and its capital city is Puebla....

 and Oaxaca
Oaxaca
Oaxaca , , officially Estado Libre y Soberano de Oaxaca is one of the 31 states which, along with the Federal District, comprise the 32 federative entities of Mexico. It is divided into 571 municipalities; of which 418 are governed by the system of customs and traditions...

. They usually travel by commercial airliner, which limits equipment to thirty kilograms per person. Most this equipment is simple, such as picks, drills and eyebolts.

Outside of Mexico, they have been to Taiwan
Taiwan
Taiwan , also known, especially in the past, as Formosa , is the largest island of the same-named island group of East Asia in the western Pacific Ocean and located off the southeastern coast of mainland China. The island forms over 99% of the current territory of the Republic of China following...

, New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

, and Iran
Iran
Iran , officially the Islamic Republic of Iran , is a country in Southern and Western Asia. The name "Iran" has been in use natively since the Sassanian era and came into use internationally in 1935, before which the country was known to the Western world as Persia...

.

However, they state that the most difficult work they have done so far was in Indonesia, after the 2004 tsunami
2004 Indian Ocean earthquake
The 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake was an undersea megathrust earthquake that occurred at 00:58:53 UTC on Sunday, December 26, 2004, with an epicentre off the west coast of Sumatra, Indonesia. The quake itself is known by the scientific community as the Sumatra-Andaman earthquake...

. The brigade pays for most of its own expenses, which often has them arriving by whatever means is available. When they went to Indonesia, the heavily-discounted plane tickets from Japan Airlines
Japan Airlines
is an airline headquartered in Shinagawa, Tokyo, Japan. It is the flag carrier of Japan and its main hubs are Tokyo's Narita International Airport and Tokyo International Airport , as well as Nagoya's Chūbu Centrair International Airport and Osaka's Kansai International Airport...

 only took them as far as Singapore
Singapore
Singapore , officially the Republic of Singapore, is a Southeast Asian city-state off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, north of the equator. An island country made up of 63 islands, it is separated from Malaysia by the Straits of Johor to its north and from Indonesia's Riau Islands by the...

. Once there, the group did not have money for the ferry to Indonesia and had to leave much of its equipment behind. The workers themselves made it to Banda Aceh
Banda Aceh
Banda Aceh is the provincial capital and largest city in the province of Aceh, Indonesia, located on the island of Sumatra, with an elevation of 35 meters. The city regency covers an area of 64 square kilometres and according to the 2000 census had a population of 219,070 people...

 only because a Baptist minister overheard the group arguing over money and gave them the $400 USD they needed to cross. They ate whatever they could, slept in tents distributed by the Chinese government and hitched rides to disaster sites on Indonesian police trucks. Most of the work done was to remove bodies from the mud and debris left behind by the tsunami.

One of the most recent events for the Topos was to Abruzzo
Abruzzo
Abruzzo is a region in Italy, its western border lying less than due east of Rome. Abruzzo borders the region of Marche to the north, Lazio to the west and south-west, Molise to the south-east, and the Adriatic Sea to the east...

, Italy, after the earthquake there
2009 L'Aquila earthquake
The 2009 L'Aquila earthquake occurred in the region of Abruzzo, in central Italy. The main shock occurred at 3:32 local time on 6 April 2009, and was rated 5.8 on the Richter scale and 6.3 on the moment magnitude scale; its epicentre was near L'Aquila, the capital of Abruzzo, which together...

 in April 2009. It was their first time in Europe.

The group participated in efforts after the 2010 Haiti earthquake
2010 Haiti earthquake
The 2010 Haiti earthquake was a catastrophic magnitude 7.0 Mw earthquake, with an epicentre near the town of Léogâne, approximately west of Port-au-Prince, Haiti's capital. The earthquake occurred at 16:53 local time on Tuesday, 12 January 2010.By 24 January, at least 52 aftershocks...

. The first group of six left on 14 January for the country from Cancún. The initial group went to assess the situation with later groups, including the canine unit going later. The Topos rescued 15 people alive in the capital.

To date, no volunteer has lost his or her life on duty.

External links

http://www.topos.mx/site/ (Official webpage)
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