Marie-Claire Rupio, the wife of Black Stars winger, Christian Atsu has spoken for the first time about her husband's disappearance following the devastating earthquake that hit Turkey.

Marie-Claire Rupio in an interview with the BBC said the family was devastated by news that the player has been trapped in a collapsed building following the earthquake.

She described as confusing the contradicting reports about the situation and appealed to the UK and Turkish governments to do everything possible to rescue him.

"He is still trapped under the rubble but the problem is they don't have the necessary equipment needed to get them out. So he is still missing and they don't know where he is," she told BBC in an interview.

Background

A powerful earthquake struck South-eastern Turkey, near the Syrian border, killing more than 5,000 people as they slept and trapping many others in the early hours of Monday.

The US Geological Survey said the 7.8 magnitude tremor struck at 04:17 local time (01:17 GMT) at a depth of 17.9km (11 miles) near the city of Gaziantep.

Hours later, a second quake, which had a magnitude of 7.5, hit the Elbistan district of Kahramanmaras province.

In September 2022, the 31-year-old Black Stars winger penned a one-year deal to join the Turkish side following a spell in Saudi Arabia.

It is reported that over 22,000 lives have been claimed by the earthquake in both Syria and Turkey.