Former Kaizer Chiefs and Orlando Pirates coach Muhsin Ertugral has been shaken as his home country Turkey was struck with a huge earthquake on Monday.
According to the reports, more than 16,000 people in southern Turkey and northern Syria, near the border of Turkey, have been killed.
The football league in Turkey has indefinitely been suspended due to the quake, and Ghanaian winger Christian Atsu, who plays for Hatayspor, is reportedly still under the rubble, along with club sporting director Taner Savut.
“All good, it is just that the helplessness is psychologically hitting me very hard,” said Ertugral, who won the Mandela Cup (now CAF Confederation Cup) with Chiefs in 2001, to iDiski Times.
“This is exactly the situation – people are struggling to breathe and sleep. As those souls are stuck there (under the fallen buildings), our hearts are also squeezed here.
“Haluk Levent (Turkish rock music singer) once said, ‘does one ever want to be a scoop’? I wish I could be.
“We are trying to coordinate with our football fraternity to help.”
This is one of the latest earthquakes that have hit Turkey as they lie in one of the world’s most active earthquake zones.
In 1999, a deadly quake killed more than 17,000 in the north-west. The country’s worst earthquake disaster was in 1939 when 33,000 people died in Turkey’s eastern Erzincan province.
Following this quake, Turkey’s interior minister, Suleymon Soylu, said 10 cities were affected by the initial quake including Hatay, Osmaniye, Adiyaman, Malatya, Sanliurfa, Adana, Diyarbakir and Kilis.
School has been suspended in those cities for at least a week. Of all those cities mentioned, Ertugral’s Istanbul was not affected.
Ertugral, who has the Germany citizenship, made his name in the PSL, but the last club he coached in the PSL didn’t bear good results – Maritzburg United in the 2018/19 season, where he was appointed to be the rescue act then.
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As it was not a happy stay, he lost all five matches. He also coached Cape Town Spurs four times, Chiefs twice, Golden Arrows and Mpumalanga Aces, who he led to fourth place league finish in the 2015/16 season.
He’s the second foreign coach to have been in charge of the most matches in the PSL era with 394, with Germany’s Ernst Middendorp having been in charge more – 403.
