Photo of father clutching dead daughter's hand in Turkey goes viral; underlines quake despair
A heart-breaking image of a father holding the hand of his deceased daughter, buried under concrete rubble, shocked the world as Turkey and Syria still struggle to cope with the devastating effects of two massive earthquakes that claimed the lives of over 20,000 people in the region.
The photo, now a symbol of the pain and agony that clouds the lives of the people in the region, was taken in Kahramanmaras, Turkey, on 7 February by international news agency AFP's Adem Atlan where 7.5+ magnitude earthquakes brought down an apartment building, leaving rescuers to search through the pile of rubble, reports international media.
The gut-wrenching photo shows Mesut Hancer, dressed in an orange reflective coat, sitting on top of the debris, holding the hand of his 15-year-old daughter Irmak, whose lifeless body remained crushed and stuck under a massive piece of concrete block that fell onto her bed during the quakes.
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The epicentre of the first earthquake was the Pazarcık district of Kahramanmaraş, in the southeast of Turkey. The initial, 7.8-magnitude earthquake was followed, by a second quake that measured 7.7 on the Richter scale.
As per the latest reports, the confirmed death toll from the deadliest quake in the region in two decades stood at more than 24,000 across southern Turkey and northwest Syria.
Besides, hundreds of thousands more people have been left homeless and short of food in bleak winter conditions as rescuers, including teams from dozens of countries including Bangladesh, toil night and day in the ruins of thousands of wrecked buildings to find survivors.
