Even though the chances of retrieving anyone alive were very slim, the SAR agreed to search through the rubble. Afraid that they might damage bodies with their heavy equipment, they sometimes dug with their hands while enduring the stench.

Huang and Chen are members of both the Tzu Cheng Faith Corps and the Search and Rescue Association (SAR) of the Republic of China. They both grabbed their personal equipment and took a night bus with another six members from southern Taiwan to Taipei for further instructions.

Their equipment included a sono-video camera probe, hydraulic cutters and breathing apparatus, plus 500 blankets, 500 sleeping bags, 70 tents, and 750 first-aid kits. This brought their luggage to more than 200 pieces.

Taoyuan Tzu Chi members saw them off at the airport. As a cold front was predicted to hit El Salvador, the Tzu Chi members bought thermal underwear for each of the SAR members.

"Although El Salvador is located in the southern hemisphere and it's summer there now, it's cold at night," observed Lu Cheng-tsung, chief commander of the SAR. "This thermal underwear will keep us warm. The Tzu Chi people are really thoughtful."


They made it!

After a twelve-hour flight, they arrived in Los Angeles, where the team of more than thirty members with over two hundred pieces of luggage weighing more than four tons were to transfer to another plane. To assist them, Tzu Chi volunteers from the Southern California branch office set up a temporary information center at the airport and offered fruit and snacks to the team.

All TACA Airline flights from Los Angeles to El Salvador were fully booked and there were no seats available for the SAR members. When the airline announced the situation to home-going passengers waiting in line, many of them kindly gave up their seats, allowing all the SAR members to board the plane.

Tzu Chi hired a bus to take the team from the airport to the rescue information center, where they met the rescue team from the Taipei Fire Squad and rescue teams from other countries.

The briefing revealed that most houses, which were made of brick, had toppled in the earthquake. Since the chances of retrieving survivors were slim, local authorities asked SAR members to search for and dig up bodies of victims. Chief Commander Lu Cheng-tsung immediately agreed to the request.

The afternoon of the day the team arrived in El Salvador, the information center sent helicopters to transfer them and their equipment to the disaster area in two trips.

They found that many people had been buried alive by quake-induced landslides. All the victims had been found, except one female employee of the central bank who was still missing. Local rescuers had searched for several days and had located her eyeglasses and shoes, which had been identified by her family.

Chou Hui-cheng, captain of the SAR North First Division, took eight members with him to dig carefully until it was dark. On the following day, they suspected that the missing woman might have been carried downhill by the mudslide. Three of them stayed on top of the mountain as a safety measure while the other five risked their lives to look downhill.

"After descending seventy or eighty meters, we smelled the odor," said Chou. When they located the possible spot by the smell, they lined up and dug carefully. The body was soon found.


Miraculous coincidence

Unable to speak Spanish, SAR members could not communicate with the local people, yet they took the initiative to ask for assignments.

"The next day, the vice president of El Salvador came to the disaster areas and expressed his gratitude to us through an interpreter," said Chen Hsin-hung. They were assigned to go to a valley in another mountain area by military truck. Torrents of rock and mud from the surrounding mountains had buried all the inhabitants in the valley.

An official of the local health station said that two hours before the earthquake, a man and woman had been seen walking in this area. Local people had mobilized five hundred volunteers to dig in an area of about seven acres for three days, but to no avail.

"Through an interpreter, they asked us to use the life probe," said SAR member Huang Teng-hui. "We explained repeatedly that the probe can only detect the heartbeat of a living person, but they wouldn't listen to us."

At the urgent request of local people, Huang and his three partners asked the crowd to step away so that they could use the probe. And the probe actually did detect something.

A dog suddenly ran into the circle and dug at a certain spot. Huang asked the owner of the dog to take it away first and then release it again. The dog went back and dug at the same spot. They started to explore that spot, and soon a foul body odor emanated from underground. An arm emerged. It did not take long for the bodies of the couple to be found.

"The interpreter told us later that word spread quickly among the local people. They said that the probe really worked because it found what hundreds of people had failed to find," Huang said with a wry smile. "Now the locals firmly believe the probe can detect dead people."

It seems that this "miraculous coincidence" will never be clarified.


Digging with bare hands

On the fourth day, all the SAR members went to the worst disaster area in Kolon. A collapsed mountain had buried four-fifths of a town downhill. More than six hundred people had been killed in this area.

The SAR members were divided into four teams and searched with the assistance of heavy mechanical equipment. If they smelled any odor, they would stop the machines and dig with shovels. When the odor became stronger, they threw away the shovels and used their bare hands to dig in order not to damage the bodies.

"OK, they're out." Members lifted distorted bodies in their arms. They then either put them in body bags or wrapped them up in blankets and carried them away on stretchers.

Some team members touched the fluid oozing from corpses and their arms swelled immediately. Quickly they daubed iodine from their first-aid kits on the infected areas. They dug out ten bodies that day. They could have worked overnight if they had been equipped with lighting facilities.

Early the following morning, they went back to the scene, but the drivers of the heavy machinery were not there. Commander Lu jumped on an excavator and began to operate it. Chen Hsin-hung also jumped on a power shovel and cleared away mud. Two members of another team drove another excavator and power shovel.

Eight more bodies were successfully excavated that day through their efforts.


Rescue heroes

They ended their task in El Salvador at noon and were ready to take a flight home. Of all the foreign rescuers, the SAR was the last team to leave.

Two local people sent a letter to them. It reads, "Thank you for all the help you have offered us. God will reward you for what you have done."

"Although we missed the most crucial rescue time and therefore did not find any survivors, our members never slacked off," said Lu Cheng-tsung. "We are grateful to Evergreen Airlines for providing tickets between Taiwan and America, and the Tzu Chi Foundation for obtaining tickets between America and El Salvador, and the many Tzu Chi people who gave help and encouragement."

Before they left, the SAR members gave their cookies and instant noodles to local people. Chen Lung-hui said with a sigh, "After seeing the happiness on their faces, I suddenly realized how true it was when Master Cheng Yen said that it is a blessing to be able to give."

On their flight back, the Evergreen Airlines flight attendants wrote a beautiful card and dedicated it to the heroes who had gone on this international rescue mission. On the card they wrote, "It was a thrill when we saw you coming into the cabin in your red uniforms. Although we could not go with you, we want you to know through this small card that we are truly proud of you!"