The iconic picture of a father in an orange jacket holding his daughter’s hand after she was killed in Türkiye’s Feb. 6 earthquake has provoked an outpouring of sympathy and help worldwide, the mourning mum or dad advised Agence France-Presse (AFP).
Around three weeks after the catastrophe that killed greater than 44,300 individuals in Türkiye and 1000’s extra in neighboring Syria, AFP photographer Adem Altan tracked down Mesut Hançer within the capital Ankara.
He had moved there from Kahramanmaraş, the epicenter of the quakes.
In addition to his daughter, who he misplaced below the ruins of an eight-story block of flats, “I lost my mother, my brothers, my nephews in the quake,” mentioned Hançer.
“But nothing compares to burying a child. The pain is indescribable.”
The picture of Hançer carrying an orange jacket, sitting within the chilly and rain whereas holding his daughter’s hand because it protruded from below the rubble, was printed on many newspaper entrance pages and seen tens of millions of occasions on-line.
It turned an emblem of a catastrophe that devastated tens of 1000’s of lives, drawing specific consideration to his household.
Now, a businessperson has provided the previous baker an administrative job at a TV channel and gave the household an house in Ankara.
Meanwhile, a portray of Hançer’s daughter Irmak as an angel alongside her father, donated by an artist, hangs of their lounge.
“I couldn’t let go of her hand. My daughter was sleeping like an angel in her bed,” he recalled.
Hançer was working in his bakery when the quake hit at 4:17 a.m. (0117 GMT) on Feb. 6.
Calling residence, he discovered his spouse and three grownup youngsters secure of their one-story home, though it was broken because the earth shook.
But nobody may 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, Hançer discovered the eight-story block collapsed right into a mound of rubble.
His daughter was within the center, amid the particles of on a regular basis life.
Before a rescue workforce arrived, Hançer and different native individuals tried to seek out their family members below the ruins themselves, even making an attempt – and failing – to shift concrete blocks by hand.
Unable to recuperate Irmak’s physique, he remained by her facet.
“I held her hand, stroked her hair, kissed her cheeks,” he remembers.
Later, he noticed Adem Altan taking photographs of the scene.
“Take pictures of my child,” he mentioned in a quiet, damaged voice.
Source: www.dailysabah.com
