Former Chelsea star Christian Atsu has been discovered alive within the rubble of the Turkey earthquake after his voice was reportedly heard.
The 31-year-old Ghana ace is believed to have been on the ninth ground of an condo block when two earthquakes rocked Turkey on early on Monday.
Atsu, who has three youngsters with spouse Marie-Claire, performs for Hatayspor, who he joined final summer season.
The earthquake hit exhausting in Kahramanmaras, the place Hatayspor are based mostly.
Video confirmed rescuers with search lights sifting via the wreckage of his condo block through the night time, The Solar experiences.
In keeping with native media experiences, Atsu’s voice was heard within the rubble, together with that of Hatayspor’s Sporting Director Taner Savut.
Hatayspor spokesman Mustafa Ozat reportedly mentioned: “Christian Atsu was taken out with accidents.
“Our sporting director, Taner Savut, is sadly nonetheless below the rubble.”
Ghana’s ambassador to Turkey, Francisca Ashitey-Odunton, mentioned she’s acquired data from the nation’s soccer authorities that Atsu “has been discovered”.
A number of of his teammates have been dramatically rescued from their properties after the earthquake struck at 4am native time.
Simply hours earlier than the quake struck Atsu scored deep into stoppage time on Saturday to safe a 1-0 win over Kasimpasa.
“Essential win for the staff. Glad to be on the scoresheet,” he tweeted.
Footage confirmed Atsu being mobbed by his teammates as ecstatic followers celebrated the win, together with messages praying for him to be discovered.
Newcastle and Chelsea have been earlier anxiously awaiting information of their former participant.
A put up on Newcastle’s official Twitter account mentioned: “Praying for some constructive information, @ChristianAtsu20.”
Whereas Chelsea tweeted: “We’re praying for you, Christian Atsu.”
Atsu joined Chelsea from Porto for £3.5million in 2013 however didn’t make a single look for the Premier League giants.
Atsu took in loans at Vitesse, Everton, Bournemouth, Malaga and Newcastle.
And the Magpies made his deal everlasting in 2017 after Atsu performed a key function of their promotion from the Championship.
The ace ended up making 86 appearances for Newcastle earlier than becoming a member of Al-Raed in 2021.
Atsu moved to Hatayspor final summer season and has one purpose in 4 video games.
As much as 10,000 are feared useless, together with many kids, after two “once-in-a-century” earthquakes rocked Turkey and Syria at the moment.
A large 7.8 magnitude shock – one of many greatest for 100 years – was adopted hours later by one other enormous 7.5 magnitude quake.
Frantic survivors used their naked arms to dig via the rubble of flattened properties and have been filmed pulling kids to security amid scenes of utter destruction.The dual earthquakes additionally sparked tsunami alerts on Mediterranean coasts in Greece, Cyprus and Italy, and shaking was felt as far-off as Egypt and Iran.
— This story initially appeared on thesun.co.uk and has been republished with permission
