Héctor Bello is mourning a devastating loss.
The soccer player, a defender for Venezuela’s professional team Marítimo de La Guaira, announced that his wife Andrea Bello died while protecting their 20-month-old daughter Alana.
“You’ll always be our favorite hero, Mommy,” Héctor wrote in a June 26 Instagram tribute, translated from Spanish. “I’m going to make sure our baby remembers how wonderful you were, how much you loved her.”
“I’ll tell her the story of how you saved her,” he continued, “how you gave your own life for our daughter, how you were a brave woman who, even with your last breaths, never abandoned her, Mommy.”
On June 25, Venezuela was hit by powerful 7.2 and 7.5-magnitude twin earthquakes, killing—per the Associated Press—over 900 people.
According to the organization Cumaná de Campeones, Andrea, “the partner of Cumanes footballer Héctor Bello ‘Kike’ was found dead in the rubble after the earthquake that shook the country yesterday afternoon/evening. His daughter survived the collapse of the building where the entire family lived.”