Uttar Pradesh [India], April 16 (ANI): The team of Indian Army's Field Hospital deployed in Mandalay under Operation Brahma returned to India late on Tuesday night.

The Indian Army's Field Hospital team returned to Hindon Air Force Base and was deployed in Mandalay as part of India's humanitarian assistance and disaster relief effort to provide medical support to the victims of the earthquake in Myanmar.

Commander of 50 Parachute Brigade, Brig Naveen Kumar shared the details of the operation with ANI.

He said, 'As you are aware, this immediate operation was launched by the Indian Army in the aftermath of the 7.7 scale earthquake, which had hit Myanmar. The epicentre of this was in a city known as Mandalay. Subsequently, on the request of the Myanmarese authorities, we moved to the city of Mandalay which was the epicentre.'

He added, 'Initially, we had gone with a 118-member contingent. But subsequently, as we saw the devastation and lives getting lost and situation escalating, more replenishment flights and more specialist and surgeons were pulled in and ultimately, there was a 123 member strong contingent in that country which included variety of surgeons, all kind of specialist for trauma care, all kinds of laboratory activities, all kind of x-ray facilities and everything else to be able to conduct life-saving surgeries.'

Sharing further details, he said, 'We had established a twin parallel operation theatre which was one of its kind in a field condition wherein they could operate on two critical patients at the same point of time. In addition, once this team had gone across there and as the trust of people in Indian Medical facilities grew, even the local hospitals started referring their patients for advanced medical care to the Indian doctors and the healing touch of our doctors was quite evident there. We were able to touch the hearts and lives of a number of people.'

He told, 'We have carried out approximately 65 major surgeries in field conditions' and shared that they had left adequate medicines for the people.

Commanding Officer, Para Field Hospital, Lt Col Jagneet Gill told ANI about the operation that, 'It was not a very difficult task in a way because we have been trained to do that. We have been a part of 60 Parachute Field Hospital, which is under the 50th (Independent) Parachute Brigade. This hospital is designated for any international HADR (Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Relief) operations. We have already represented the country in various HADR operations that were in Nepal and Turkey as well. We are already prepared for this kind of operations.'

He highlighted, 'We had great support from the people of Myanmar and the government there.'

Operation Brahma has been India's dedicated humanitarian outreach to Myanmar in the wake of the disaster. As part of this initiative, India has also extended aid to the Indian diaspora in the Yangon region.

The Embassy of India in Myanmar stated that Ambassador Abhay Thakur handed over 15 tonnes of rice, cooking oil, and foodstuffs to a local community relief group. The Consulate General of India in Mandalay similarly contributed by providing a generator set, water purifier, and cooking oil to the Ambika temple kitchen, which is currently serving meals to 4,000 people daily. (ANI)