Banyana Banyana's chances of participating in the Turkish Women's Cup this month are in doubt after Monday's earthquake that hit Turkey and Syria.

Over 1,000 people have been killed by the earthquake and infrastructure has also been damaged. Banyana were set to take on Turkey on February 15, Uzbekistan on February 18 and then conclude with Venezuela on February 21.

All games are scheduled to play at the Goldcity Sport Complex in Kargicak. 

The tournament serves as preparation for the Fifa Women's World Cup later this year in Australia and New Zealand. The locally based Banyana players are scheduled to travel to Turkey this week, with the overseas players joining them before the start of the competition. 

Yesterday at the SABC studios,  Banyana coach Desiree Ellis announced a 26-women squad which will be trimmed to 23 before departing for Turkey, but she also addressed the possibility of the Turkish Women's Cup being cancelled following the earthquake.

"We are in contact with the embassy as well as the local organisers. We can only continue with our preparations until we’re told otherwise; we’ll continue with that and get ready for the Turkish Cup," Ellis said.

The Wafcon-winning coach said there will be discussions with Safa technical director Walter Steenbok and the rest of the relevant parties to see if they can come up with alternatives should the competition be canned. 

"We want to get an answer as soon as possible. If anything happens we might get an answer at the very last minute, so we are trying to get in touch with them to get feedback on what is happening," said Ellis. 

"We’ll work on a plan B or plan C because we can’t waste this opportunity, we only have two Fifa dates; they have taken away the January and June dates, and we only have two Fifa dates that we can bring in players from abroad."