New Delhi: Former Chelsea and Newcastle forward Christian Atsu is missing after a massive earthquake with a magnitude of 7.8 on the Richter scale hit southern Turkiye in the early hours of Monday, as reported by the news agency AP.
He is believed to be trapped under rubble. According to Hatayspor spokesperson Mustafa Özat, the player from Ghana, who also plays for Turkish club Hatayspor, is thought to be in a building that was destroyed due to the earthquake that claimed more than 2,500 lives, AP reported citing Turkish media.
According to Ozat, the director of the club Taner Savut was also suspected to be present in the building that collapsed. The club officials were not able to contact them. Ozat said, at least two other Hatayspor players had to be pulled out of the rubble, as reported by AP. Both of them are safe now. He further said that Atsu and Savut were the only two Hatayspor players or officials still untraced.
Ghana Football Association spokesman Henry Asante-Twum told AP that they had no news of Atsu and Ghana’s international relations department was seeking information from Turkish authorities.
Atsu’s friend, Ibrahim Kwarteng said he had tried calling him but he could not reach him. “We are only praying that he will be found,” Kwarteng said, as quoted by AP. Over 4,300 people have been reported dead in Turkiye and Syria due to the massive earthquake.
As per a report by the Associated Press, the authorities feared the death toll to rise as rescuers looked for survivors among tangles of metal and concrete spread across the region beset by Syria’s 12-year civil war and refugee crisis.
According to the latest figures, the quake claimed the lives of 2,921 people in Turkish provinces with about 16,000 injured while the death toll in government-held areas of Syria reached 656 with some 1,400 injured, stated the AP report. At least 450 people were reported dead in Syria’s rebel-held northwest region.