Father who lost daughter in Türkiye quakes: ‘Pain is indescribable’

A photograph of a father holding his daughter’s hand killed in Türkiye’s February 6 earthquake has provoked an outpouring of sympathy and assist from world wide, he informed AFP.

Around three weeks after the catastrophe that killed greater than 44,000 folks in Türkiye and 1000’s extra in neighbouring Syria, AFP photographer Adem Altan tracked down Mesut Hancer within the capital Ankara.

He had moved there from Kahramanmaras, close to the epicentre of the quake.

As effectively as his daughter, misplaced beneath the ruins of an eight-storey block of flats, “I lost my mother, my brothers, my nephews in the quake,” stated Hancer.

“But nothing compares to burying a child. The pain is indescribable.”

The Haunting Image 

The picture of Hancer carrying an orange jacket towards the chilly and rain whereas holding his daughter’s hand rising from the rubble, was printed on many newspaper entrance pages and seen hundreds of thousands of instances on-line.

It turned an emblem of a catastrophe that devastated tens of 1000’s of lives, drawing particular consideration to his household.

Now, a businessman has supplied the previous baker an administrative job at a TV channel and given the household an condo in Ankara. 

Meanwhile a portray of Hancer’s daughter Irmak as an angel alongside her father, donated by an artist, hangs of their front room.

“I couldn’t let go of her hand. My daughter was sleeping like an angel in her bed,” he recalled.

Hancer was working in his bakery when the quake hit at 4:17 am (0117 GMT).

Calling house, he discovered his spouse and three grownup kids had been secure at house of their one-storey home, though it was broken because the earth shook.

‘I held her hand, I stroked her hair, I kissed her cheeks’

But no-one might attain Irmak, the youngest, who had stayed the night time at her grandmother’s home.

She had deliberate to spend time with cousins visiting from Istanbul and Hatay.

Rushing to his mom’s constructing, Hancer discovered the eight-storey block collapsed right into a mound of rubble.

In the center, amid the particles of on a regular basis life, was his daughter.

Before a rescue group arrived, Hancer and different native folks tried to seek out their family members beneath the ruins themselves, even making an attempt – and failing – to shift concrete blocks by hand.

Unable to get well Irmak’s physique, he remained sat by her facet.

“I held her hand, I stroked her hair, I kissed her cheeks,” he recollects.

Later, he noticed Adem Altan taking photographs of the scene.

“Take pictures of my child,” he stated in a quiet, damaged voice.

READ MORE: Teary father celebrates daughter’s rescue by Türkiye miners

Source: TRTWorld and companies