The wife and two children of Argentine midfielder Lucas Trejo were killed when massive twin earthquakes devastated Venezuela, his team said on Sunday.
Trejo, who plays for Club Sport Maritimo La Guaira, a Venezuelan second-division team, spent three days searching for his wife Yanina and children Aaron and Ainhoa under the rubble before rescue personnel found their remains, according to US media.
“Club Sport Maritimo La Guaira deeply mourns the irreparable loss of our player’s wife and children,” the team wrote on Instagram, along with a photo of the family.
Trejo, 38, was at a team training camp in Caracas when the magnitude 7.2 and 7.5 earthquakes occurred on Wednesday evening, CNN reports.
He went to his home in La Guaira, the state most severely affected by the tragedy, to “a horrific scene,” Trejo’s brother-in-law Ricardo Ardiles told CNN.
“He found absolutely nothing of what the building itself had been,” Ardiles replied.
Nearly 1,500 people have died, and tens of thousands are still missing, Venezuelan authorities announced on Sunday.
On Sunday, Club Sport Marítimo La Guaira posted on social media that they “deeply mourn the irreparable loss” of Trejo’s family. The message included a photo of Trejo with one hand on his daughter’s shoulder and the other on his wife.
“Lucas, you’re not alone.” Your family at Maritime La Guaira is with you,” it read.
The calamity last week, which the US Geological Survey described as a unique “doublet,” with two strong earthquakes striking only 39 seconds apart, also killed and injured several soccer players in the country.
Yimvert Berroteran, a bright young talent, was among the hundreds killed, according to the Venezuelan national team and the Venezuelan Football Federation (FVF) on Friday.
The 18-year-old competed in the U-17 World Cup in Doha a few months ago and has lately represented the U-20 national team.
According to FVF and their respective teams, young footballers Victor Palacios and Razan Sijaa died as a result of the earthquake.
Another player’s boyfriend, Héctor Bello, died while shielding their kid, Bello said on social media Saturday.
“I’ll make sure to remind our baby girl how wonderful you were and how much you loved her,” Bello wrote in a post.
Tourists and foreign residents have also died, including eight Chinese people, according to Chinese official media on Sunday.
