In Oni municipality, in the disaster zone, search and rescue operation continues for the second day, in which up to 400 firefighters, rescuers and employees of various units of the Ministry of Internal Affairs are involved.

Today, from 06:00, 2 helicopters of the Border Police were involved in the rescue operation. Employees of Imereti, Racha-Lechkhumi and Kvemo Svaneti police department as well as patrol police department are also working at the site of the disaster.

K-9 unit specialists of the Emergency Situations Management Service, who work with specially trained dogs in the disaster zone, is involved in the rescue operation.

The employees of the Ministry of Internal Affairs are actively evacuating citizens from the disaster area, 140 more people have been transferred to a safe place at the moment. A field headquarters has been set up in the disaster zone, in constant contact with the coordination headquarters created in the local town hall, geologists are also working on the site.

“At the moment, we have to confirm the discovery of 2 bodies, unfortunately. A search and rescue operation is underway. As you know, the land mass is spread over a very large area, therefore, we try to work as carefully as possible. Equipment is gradually allocated, firemen and rescuers are mobilized near all equipment to pay more attention to the work, to prevent damaging bodies in case of discovery. In addition, on both sides of the river bed, firemen and rescuers are conducting a search and rescue operation on the progression of which public will be updated later. In the morning, we started evacuating people from the epicenter with helicopters, who were mobilized to safe places yesterday. Just recently, we evacuated 140 people. We have completely encompassed the affected area, except for a few difficult locations”, - noted Temur Mghebrishvili, head of the Emergency Situations Management Service.