Turkey Man Holding Hand Of Dead Daughter Trapped In Rubble Is Heart Aching

A father is seen holding his dead daughter, a 15-year-old, in a moving image taken from the streets of Turkey, which has been devastated by disaster. The image portrayed pain, sadness, hopelessness, and suffering.

A father holding his 15-year-old daughter's hand, the only thing left after her body was crushed by concrete, was a scene that perfectly captured the unspeakable pain of the Turkish earthquake. Indifferent to the outside world and overcome with grief, Mesut Hancer sat by himself in the bitter cold on a mound of shattered bricks that had once been his house. Irmak, his daughter, was dead. He touched the girl's fingers as they protruded from a mattress she was sleeping on when the first tremor of Monday's early morning struck, but he wouldn't let her go.

Father Holds Dead Daughter's Hand Trapped In Rubble

Rescue teams weren't present. Bits of the survivors' homes were scattered on the wreckage-strewn street as they desperately dug through the rubble to find loved ones. Bedframes were stacked on top of broken balconies. Toys and clothing that had been torn told of lives lost. Irmak was one of almost 20,000 people who were confirmed dead in the most powerful earthquake to hit Turkey and Syria in nearly a century, but it was too late for her.

Suggested Reading: Turkish Woman Hugs And Kisses Indian Army Woman Soldier In Gratitude

The father was still and silently weeping, but Adem Altan, a seasoned AFP photographer who had rushed to the scene from Ankara, could not take his eyes off of him. He was 200 feet away and focused his camera on Hancer. It was a delicate moment. However, the father called Altan in rather than shooing him away. Hancer yelled in a low, trembling voice, "Take pictures of my child." I was unable to speak. The father wished for the world to witness his grief and the grief of his people. And so it did.

"I was crying while taking the pictures. I kept saying, 'What immense pain,' to myself. I could not control my tears "Altan remembered. Because everyone needed to maintain silence in order to hear if there were survivors under the rubble, Altan was unable to ask too many questions.

Altan, a photographer for 40 years who spent 15 of those years working for AFP, knew that the image captured Turkey's suffering. The global impact, however, surprised him. Numerous tens of thousands of people have shared it online. Numerous people from all over the world have written to Altan to offer support.

Major newspapers around the world, including the Financial Times and the Wall Street Journal, featured the AFP image on their front pages.