A 36-year-old plant engineer from Uttarakhand who is missing in Turkey in the aftermath of the massive earthquake that struck the country and Syria on Monday went there on a month-long office trip and is scheduled to return later this month, his family members based in Dehradun said on Thursday.
Vijay Kumar, the missing person, works for Bengaluru-based Oxyplants India Private Limited and was sent to Turkey by the company for execution and commissioning of a dissolved acetylene gas plant for a gas supply company there, his elder brother, Arun Kumar, said.
“He reached Turkey on January 23 and we last spoke with him on Sunday,” Arun, who also works for Oxyplants as a technical consultant, said.
“I am in touch with Indian embassy officials. I spoke with the Indian Embassy in Turkey on Thursday, too — they told me there is no update on my brother. We still do not know where he is, and whether he is safe,” Arun said.
He told The Indian Express that embassy officials informed him that the rescue operation is facing difficulty because the site where Vijay was last seen is close to a petrol pump. “This is his first visit to Turkey. I am in touch with the officials concerned and talk to them every day, hoping for some good news. But there has been no update so far,” he said.
According to the family, the hotel in which Vijay was staying collapsed following the earthquake and efforts to contact him ever since have gone in vain, PTI reported. “His phone rings but no one responds,” Arun was quoted as saying by PTI.
Originally from Lansdowne tehsil of Uttarakhand’s Pauri Garhwal district, Vijay lives and works in Bengaluru. His wife lives in Dehradun with their six-year-old son, Arun said.
On Wednesday, Sanjay Verma, Secretary (West) in the Ministry of External Affairs, had said, “Apart from one Indian missing and 10 Indians who are safe but in tough conditions, we don’t have any other reports at this point of time.”
On the missing Indian national, Verma said, “He has not been traced for the last two days. We have been in touch with his family and the company in Bengaluru which employs him.”
The toll in the catastrophic earthquake, and a series of aftershocks, that hit Turkey and Syria has crossed 19,000, news agency AP reported from Ankara on Thursday evening.
