39 members of a high school volleyball team travelled from north Cyprus to southern Turkey days before the region was struck by an earthquake.
The youngsters, teachers and some parents were staying in the Isias hotel in the centre of Adiyaman when the area was hit by the 7.8-magnitude quake which has so far claimed more than 15,000 lives.
Much of the city centre was demolished with multi-storey buildings pancaking into the ground, trapping thousands of people.
Search and Rescue teams from north Cyprus travelled to the hotel location following the news of the quakes and have been working since Monday to reach those trapped.
The Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC)’s Minister of National Education Nazım Çavuşoğlu evaluated the latest situation from the Adıyaman wreckage on Thursday morning.
Sadly he noted that many people would be DNA tested and buried. Çavuşoğlu said, “We had a group of 39 people here. Within 2-3 hours after the earthquake, 4 of them were rescued with aid and 35 people were left. Our team pulled a total of 25 people out of the wreckage in these 4 days, 3 of them from our group. Of these 25 people, 1 was alive and 24 were unfortunately dead.”
“We want to take all our students from here no matter what, and take all our parents and leave. The heart of the Turkish Cypriot people beats here. We had 5 teachers, 24 students and 10 parents here,” he said.
Adding “Hope is dwindling, but hope for God is not lost. We continue to struggle patiently as if a living thing will emerge at any moment.”
Since Çavuşoğlu updated this morning, a statement was realised by the TNRC Presidential office announcing one more body had been recovered “As a result of the search and rescue operations carried out in the wreckage of the Isias Hotel in Adıyaman after the earthquake disaster in Turkey, we have reached remains of one of our children in the TRNC convoy. May God have mercy, we express our condolences to all our people. Our teams continue their work.”
