Bangladesh Under-14 Girls’ football team returned home safely from earthquake-hit Nepal on Sunday by a special flight of Bangladesh Air Force. Bangladesh team was scheduled to play hosts Nepal in the final of the AFC Under-14 Girls’ Regional Championship at Dasarath Stadium of Kathmandu on Saturday. But the game was suspended due to earthshaking disaster four hours before the scheduled match. Dasarath Stadium, the venue of the final was also heavily hit by the earthquake.
The team was scheduled to return by a Biman Bangladesh Airlines flight in the afternoon, but a fresh earthquake on Sunday denied it a chance of landing at Kathmandu.
Later, A BAF flight which carried relief materials for earthquake victims, took the team, comprising 18 players, five officials and two referees, on its way back to Dhaka.
Upon their arrival at Bangabandhu Base at 8:30pm, the players and officials heaved a sigh of relief.
Referee Jaya Chakma said she was in dressing room few hours before the final match and narrowly escaped injury.
‘The light suddenly went off and then on. The scene I saw only in movie…everything was moving. I just run away from the dressing room and reached the ground,’ she said.
After the earthquake, she said that they went to the Hotel Everest and saw everything changed in a flash.
‘I found a beautiful temple that I saw in the morning when we left the hotel as destroyed when we returned.’
Jaya said they were allowed to enter the hotel only once and that too only to take their luggage and necessary documents.
Marzia Akhter, a player of the team, was seen happy and smiling along with her other team-mates after they managed to return from devastated Nepal.
She thanked Bangladesh embassy officials and Bangladesh Air Force for helping them return safely.
-With New Age input