Father holds dead daughter’s hand amid rubble as he awaits rescue in Turkey

Amidst a chaotic backdrop, a moving scene caught the world’s attention the day after a magnitude 7.8 earthquake wreaked havoc on Turkey and on Syria. The scene was recorded in the Turkish city of Kahramanmaras, located in the Cappadocia region. It shows Mesut Hancer holding the hand of his 15-year-old daughter, Irmak, dead in the rubble. Among them, a mattress where the young woman was lying, probably sleeping, at the time of the disaster. The father remained there, sitting on the rubble, holding his daughter’s hand. The feeling one day after the tragedy is one of sadness and revolt due to the lack of help. Until this Tuesday, the 7th, the city had not received any aid or supplies. It has about 1 million inhabitants and was the epicenter of the earthquake that took the lives of thousands of people. Same scenario seen in Antioch, near Syria. The feeling there is the same: frustration and a feeling of abandonment. “Where is the State? Where are? Look around you. Not a single employee, for God’s sake. It’s been two days and we haven’t seen anyone. They didn’t bring a single brick. The children froze to death”, says Ali Sagiroglu. The death toll has now surpassed the 7,000 mark.

In the streets, survivors stand next to the bodies, wrapped in blankets, in the hope that someone will come to pick them up. Cuma Yildiz does not hide his disappointment. “Where are they? They talk, they talk, they fight like dogs, but where are they now?”, he asks. Another resident, who did not identify himself, reported that it was still possible to hear people calling for help among the ruins. “Yesterday morning you could still hear the voices calling for help in the rubble, but they fell silent. People probably froze to death,” said one man. A blizzard hit the city on the day of the catastrophe. Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu visited Kahramanmaras and reported that 2,000 first responders had been dispatched to the affected areas. Antioch survivor Onur Kayai, 40, tried to pull his mother and brother out of the rubble of their building. “I already moved three stones over my brother’s head, but it’s very difficult. My mother’s voice is still clear, but I don’t hear my brother’s anymore, ”he laments. Professor Semire Coban went after two rescue teams to ask for help from three buried relatives. “They prefer to concentrate on the places where voices are still heard among the ruins,” she told AFP.

*With information from AFP