The photograph of a father holding his dead daughter’s hand, obtained by a photographer from the AFP agency, was one of the crudest images that have been around the world after the devastating earthquake of February 6 in Turkey and Syria.
Almost three weeks after that catastrophe that caused more than 44,000 deaths in Turkey, Adem Altan, the photojournalist who immortalized that moment in a photographic sequence, met Mesut Hancer againthe father holding his daughter Irmak’s hand in the rain.
This father of four children left Kahramanmaras city few days agowhere he lived when the earthquake occurred, and moved to Ankara, the capital of Turkeywhere he established his new home.
“I also lost my mother, my brothers and my nephews in the earthquake. But there is nothing like burying a child”, explained this man in his forties. “It’s an indescribable pain,” he added, in an emotional conversation with the photographer who portrayed him in all his pain.
His family is now trying to rebuild their lives away from devastated Kahramanmaras, a city located near the epicenter of the magnitude 7.8 earthquake which also shook northern Syria.
Hancer’s image, petrified by pain and indifferent to cold and rain and dressed in an orange windbreaker, he symbolized the tragedy experienced by tens of thousands of people and caused a wave of empathy.
A series of photos and solidarity in Turkey
An Ankara businessman made a remarkable gesture of solidarity: offered the man and his family a houseand proposed to Hancer hire him as an administrator on his private TV channel.
In the living room of his new home, Hancer hung up a painting given to him by an artist in which Irmak is seen with angel wings next to him.
“I couldn’t let go of his hand. My daughter slept like an angel in her bed.“He explained the extent of his loss.
At the time of the earthquake, Hancer worked in his bakery. He immediately called his family and learned that his house had been damaged but had not collapsed, and that his wife and three of their four children were safe and sound.
But the family had no news of Irmak, the youngest of the brood, who had spent the night that night. in the grandmother’s apartment to spend more time with his visiting cousins from Istanbul.
Hancer, very worried, quickly went to his grandmother’s house and there he found the collapsed building and turned into a mountain of rubble. And in the ruins he found the body of her daughter.
No rescue team showed up. in that area during the 24 hours following the disaster. Hancer and other inhabitants had to manage to search for relatives and acquaintances under the rubble.
He he tried to remove the body of his dead daughter lifting concrete blocks with hands. It was an impossible task. Desperate, frustrated and invaded by a deep sadness, sat down next to Irmak’s corpse.
“I took her hand, stroked her hair and kissed her cheeks,” she recalls.
A few minutes later, he saw Altan taking the first photos of the aftermath of the earthquake. “Photograph my daughter”, he murmured in a voice broken by pain that is hard to forget. And her image made the pain of many for the loss of their loved ones eternal.
Source: Clarin
Mary Ortiz is a seasoned journalist with a passion for world events. As a writer for News Rebeat, she brings a fresh perspective to the latest global happenings and provides in-depth coverage that offers a deeper understanding of the world around us.