Earthquakes in Turkey: tells the AFP photographer who captured the image of a father and his dead daughter

A photographer for forty years, fifteen of them with AFP, Adem Altan was working in front of a collapsed building in Kahramanmaras, at the epicenter of the earthquake that killed more than 14,000 people in Turkey alone, when he saw the man sitting in the rubble.

With no rescue team yet arriving at the site on Tuesday, the day after the disaster, residents were trying to clear the ruins themselves to save their loved ones.

The man in the orange jacket stood still in the tumult, oblivious to the rain and the cold. Adem Altan then realized that the man, 60 meters from him, was holding a hand in his.

“My daughter, Irmak”

He began to “film” the scene: the father holding the hand of his dead son without letting go, among the rubble and devastation. While he was taking the photos, the man followed him with his eyes.

“Take pictures of my son,” she whispered in Adem’s direction, her voice cracking and shaking.

She left the hand she did not want to leave for a moment to show the photographer the place where her 15-year-old daughter lay. She before resuming it immediately.

“I was so moved at that moment. I had tears in my eyes. I kept thinking, ‘My God, this is unbearable pain,'” says the photographer. Adem then asked her name, as well as the name of her son. “My daughter, Irmak,” replied her father, Mesut Hancer.

“A photo that will remain etched in memories”

“He spoke with difficulty, in a very low voice. It was difficult to ask him more questions since the neighbors around him asked for silence so that they could hear the voices of the possible survivors trapped under the rubble”, says the photographer.

At that moment, he immediately thought that the image summed up the pain of the earthquake victims. Without imagining the impact it would have.

Covered by the press around the world, it also went viral on social media, shared hundreds of thousands of times by angry netizens.

Adem Altan has received thousands of messages from around the world expressing their solidarity and emotion at the pain of this orphaned father. “I think it is a photo that will stay in my memory. Many have told me that they will never forget this image, ”he confesses. Neither.