People's thoughts and experiences about the foreign teams that responded to the 6 February Kahramanmaraş earthquakes

International teams have an important place in disaster relief. The effects of disasters vary according to their severity. While some types of disasters can be managed with the country's existing capacity and resources, disasters that cause major damage may be beyond the capacity of the region where the disaster occurs, and in this case, international support calls become necessary. This study aims to examine the experiences and opinions of foreign teams who took part in the earthquakes that occurred in Kahramanmaraş on February 6, 2023 in Turkey, as observed by the public who witnessed the work. For this purpose, it was aimed to reach how the aid activities carried out by international aid teams that came to the region after the earthquake were perceived by the public working in the field and the experiences gained in this process. In the data collection process, 41 people from the public who worked directly or indirectly with foreign teams or witnessed their work were interviewed with previously determined questions using qualitative research methodology. The obtained data were transcribed and analyzed using the Maxqda qualitative analysis program. The findings were evaluated using the content analysis method and it was observed that the foreign teams had high-level knowledge and experience, worked devotedly, gave importance to cooperation, were sufficient in terms of equipment and materials, had high coordination and were also psychologically resilient. Despite this, it was determined that there were language-related problems in terms of communication because they were from different countries. The data of the study showed that the participants evaluated the foreign support teams positively in general.