Turkey Syria quake: Footballer Christian Atsu’s body found
The body of a star footballer long feared dead in the Turkey earthquake has been recovered.
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The body of Christian Atsu, the Ghana international forward long-feared dead in the Turkey earthquake, has been recovered.
Search teams recovered the League footballer in the ruins of a luxury 12-story building where he had been living in the city of Antakya, Hatay province, his manager said.
“Atsu’s (body) was found under the rubble. At the moment, his belongings are still being removed,” manager Murat Uzunmehmet told private news agency DHA.
Atsu had played with Newcastle United, Everton and Chelsea. He joined the top-flight Turkish side Hatayspor last September.
“We will not forget you, Atsu. Peace be upon you, beautiful person. There are no words to describe our sadness,” Hatayspor said on Twitter.
CHILD AMONG TRIO FOUND ALIVE
A child is among a group of three people who were been found alive on Saturday - 13 days after the quake.
Rescuers pulled the trio from the rubble and Turkish television channel NTV has broadcast images of them placed on stretchers and loaded into ambulances.
No further information has been publicly released.
This follows the miraculous survival story of a 14-year-old boy and two men who were rescued in Turkey nearly 11 days after the huge earthquake.
Osman, 14, was rescued 260 hours after the 7.8-magnitude tremor struck Turkey’s southeast and Syria, Health Minister Fahrettin Koca said on Twitter.
He shared an image of the adolescent with his eyes open on a stretcher and said Osman had been taken to hospital in Antakya in the quake-devastated Hatay province.
Rescuers found Osman after hearing sounds in the rubble, Anadolu state news agency reported.
14 yaşındaki Osman 260’ıncı saatte, yoğun çabaların sonucunda tekrar aramızda. Şu an Hatay Mustafa Kemal Üniversitesi Hastanesinde ilk tıbbi müdahalesi gerçekleştiriliyor. Hepimiz adına yavrumuzun yanındayım. pic.twitter.com/4S5aXp6lMc
— Dr. Fahrettin Koca (@drfahrettinkoca) February 16, 2023
One hour later, rescuers elsewhere saved two men aged 26 and 33 in Antakya, Koca said, also sharing images of the men receiving treatment from health workers.
The DHA news agency named the men as Mehmet Ali Sakiroglu, 26, and Mustafa Avci, 33, and said they had been rescued from the same building’s rubble.
“I’m well, there are no issues,” Avci says during a call to a loved one in a video shared by Koca.
Hatay’da enkaz altından 261’inci saatte, bu gece kurtarılan Mustafa, tıbbi müdahalenin ardından ilk olarak, telefon numarasını hatırladığı bir yakınını aradı. Kardeşimiz Mustafa’yı bu kadar iyi görmekten çok mutluyuz. pic.twitter.com/t0jrmH0M6r
— Dr. Fahrettin Koca (@drfahrettinkoca) February 16, 2023
The unseen man on the other end of the line breaks down before Avci asks, “How are my mother and others?”.
“They’re all well, they’re waiting for you,” the man on the other end of the line shouts, as a small smile of relief appears on Avci’s face.
The quake has killed more than 41,000 people in Turkey and Syria, injured tens of thousands of others and left millions without shelter in freezing temperatures.
The tremor struck 11 provinces in Turkey. Turkish officials have said rescue efforts in three provinces, Adana, Kilis and Sanliurfa, have been completed.
Meanwhile, five Syrian children and their parents died on Friday in a fire that razed a Turkish home they moved to after surviving last week’s earthquake, local media reported.
The Syrian family moved to the central region of Konya from the southeastern Turkish city of Nurdagi, which was badly hit by the February 6 quake.
Anadolu state news agency said the Syrian family had moved in with their relatives in Konya after the quake, following a path taken by millions of others displaced by the disaster.
“We saw the fire but we could not intervene. A girl was rescued from the window,” resident Muhsin Cakir told Anadolu.
The five children who died were aged between four and 13, Anadolu said. It was unclear whether the girl who was rescued was a member of the same family. Turkey is home to nearly four million Syrians.
Many of them live in southeastern regions devastated by last week’s disaster, which has claimed the lives of more than 38,000 people in Turkey and nearly 3,700 in Syria, according to official figures.
FEARS OF KIDNAPPING IN TURKEY AMID QUAKE CHAOS
Turkish police have detained a man allegedly trying to steal a baby from a hospital in southern Turkey, state media reported, following the catastrophic earthquake that hit the region.
A 7.8-magnitude quake unleashed chaos in southeastern Turkey and parts of Syria, killing nearly 40,000 people and displacing millions in both countries.
A man walked into a hospital pretending to be a police chief in the Samandag district of the quake-affected province of Hatay, the Anadolu state news agency said Wednesday.
The hospital staff realised his police ID card was fake and called the real police, it added.
When officers detained the man, they found fake police and military ID cards, gold and money in Turkish lira, dollars and euros worth around $6,500, Anadolu said.
The agency did not provide information about the baby.
Some parents in the region have expressed alarm to AFP over rumoured child kidnappings.
Turkish Family Minister Derya Yanik on Monday said at least 1,362 children had been separated from their families by the quake.
- With AFP
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Originally published as Turkey Syria quake: Footballer Christian Atsu’s body found
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