Two devastating earthquakes hit central Türkiye in the region of Anatolia, Northern and Western Syria on Monday, 6 February, with the first having a magnitude of 7.8 degrees on the Richter scale, while the aftershock hit 7.7 degrees on the Richter scale.
They prompted a humanitarian crisis with over 40,000 victims as several cities in both countries were razed to the ground and hundreds of thousands of buildings collapsed in the following days.
Unfortunately, the world of handball has also been affected by this earthquake, with the captain of the Turkish men’s senior national handball team and the Turkish men’s senior beach handball team, Cemal Kütahya, passing away alongside his five-year-old son Çınar.
“It is with deep sadness that we learned of the death of Cemal Kütahya, the captain of our National Men’s Handball Team, and his son Çınar Kütahya, who were buried under the rubble of the house where they lived in the town of Antakya,” the THF statement said.
Kütahya is among several sports persons who have not survived the Feb. 6 quakes, which according to figures Tuesday, has claimed the lives of more than 37,000 people, and thousands more are still missing.
