When Turkey was rocked by a devastating earthquake, former Newcastle United and Chelsea winger Christian Atsu was retrieved from beneath the wreckage of a building he was in.
Atsu was recently pulled from the wreckage of a building in Turkey (Image: Newcastle United via Getty Images)
Former Chelsea winger Christian Atsu was sleeping in the 9th floor of an apartment block when the devastating earthquake in Turkey and Syria hit caused it to collapse.
The Ghanaian was pulled from the wreckage of a 11 storey building by desperate search teams. Many were fearing for the former Newcastle United star’s life when news first broke that he was one of thousands of people missing beneath the rubble.
Fortunately, the Ghana Football Association confirmed he had been “successfully rescued” and was “receiving treatment” in hospital on his injured foot caused by the collapse. Atsu’s agent, Nana Sechere, has also told Mirror Football Atsu had come home from a game of poker with many of his close friends soon after he scored a late equaliser for his club Hatayspor in a match against fierce rivals Kasimpasa.
“The last I heard from him was at midnight on Sunday,” Sechere, who is in London, said. “Christian and his team-mates were playing poker until 3:30am at a friend’s apartment.
“The journey back to his apartment was around half an hour. He returned at 4am and the earthquake started around 20 minutes later. I didn’t know anything until I received a call from a club official at 5am asking if I’d heard from Christian. He told me Christian’s building had been completely destroyed and that they couldn’t get hold of him.
The death toll in Turkey and Syria is expected to rise well into the thousands (Image: Emrah Gurel/AP/REX/Shutterstock)
“I was hoping he was awake and that the earthquake hadn’t happened while he was sleeping. He was in an 11-storey building and he was on the ninth floor.
“The club officials were trying to help me find him but it was so hard because, understandably, they were trying to find their own friends and families as well.
Many buildings have collapsed following the devastating earthquake (Image: Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)
“There were lots of reports out of England and Ghana that Christian was safe but the first official confirmation I had was from the club at 6am on Tuesday morning. They told me that he was in hospital and that he is stable.
“He doesn’t have his phone and, like all of us, he can’t remember his numbers by heart, so I have to continue to wait to speak to him.”
Christian Atsu spent four years at Newcastle (Image: NEWCASTLE UNITED)
At the time of writing, around 7200 people have been confirmed dead as a result of the horrific earthquake between the Turkish and Syrian border. The 7.8 magnitude tremor struck near the city of Gaziantep in south-eastern Turkey and north western Syria in the early hours of Monday February 6. This was then followed by a second earthquake which struck near the city of Kahramanmaras.
“I was due to fly out on Friday,” Sechere added. “But the flight would have arrived on Sunday after Christian’s game had finished, so I asked for another flight. Had I taken that original one, I would have been there too. It’s only God that saved me. There is a God. My wife is so grateful that I didn’t fly in the end.”
source: www.dailystar.co.uk
