Members of the Canadian Search and Disaster Dogs Association landed in Vancouver Sunday morning after spending more than a week recovering bodies in the typhoon-ravaged Philippines.
The volunteers and their dogs spent hours looking through the wreckage left behind by the powerful storm, which killed more than 5,000 people and displaced about half a million others.
GALLERY: Canadian Search and Disaster Dogs in the Philippines
The association trains and deploys dogs and their handlers for search and rescue missions in Canada and around the world.
CASDDA member Sylvie Montier said although they were hoping to find people alive, it ended up being a recover mission.
“We didn’t find anyone alive,” she said. “We did have a total of 17 alerts. Ten bodies were taken out by the time we left and the teams were still digging bodies out.”
Typhoon Haiyan hit the eastern seaboard of the Philippines on Nov. 8 and quickly tore across its central islands. Many survivors were left without food and water as agencies scrambled to get supplies to remote areas.
Canada contributed $20 million for humanitarian relief in the devastated country.
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