Former Chelsea star Christian Atsu has been discovered alive and rescued from 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 flooring of an condominium 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 laborious in Kahramanmaras, the place Hatayspor are primarily based.
Video confirmed rescuers with search lights sifting via the wreckage of his condominium block through the night time, The Solar experiences.
Based on 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 stated: “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, stated 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 houses 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.
“Necessary win for the crew. Blissful 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 publish on Newcastle’s official Twitter account stated: “Praying for some optimistic 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 aim in 4 video games.
As much as 10,000 are feared useless, together with many youngsters, after two “once-in-a-century” earthquakes rocked Turkey and Syria in the present day.
An enormous 7.8 magnitude shock – one of many largest for 100 years – was adopted hours later by one other large 7.5 magnitude quake.
Frantic survivors used their naked arms to dig via the rubble of flattened houses and have been filmed pulling youngsters 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 distant as Egypt and Iran.
— This story initially appeared on thesun.co.uk and has been republished with permission