Photographer for forty years, fifteen of which at AFP, Adem Altan was shooting in front of a collapsed building in Kahramanmaras, the Turkish epicenter of the earthquake that killed more than 20,000 people between Turkey and Syria, when he saw a man sitting in the rubble .
No rescue teams had yet arrived on Tuesday, the day after the disaster, and residents were trying to clear the ruins themselves, to save their loved ones.
About 60 meters from the photographer, the man, wearing an orange jacket, remained motionless among the remains, regardless of the rain and cold.
He squeezed a hand into his, which was sticking out of the rubble.
So Adem began taking the image that then went around the world, becoming a symbol of the tragedy: a father holding his dead daughter by the hand, as if not wanting to leave her alone.
As if by squeezing her, he managed to keep her from really going away, snatched from life by the earth that shook.
While Adem snapped, the man followed him with his gaze.
“Take pictures of my daughter,” he whispered to the photojournalist, his voice breaking and shaking.
Just for a moment, he let go of his hand to show the photographer the place where her 15-year-old daughter lay, before immediately filming her.
"I was so moved at the time. I had tears in my eyes. I
kept saying to myself, 'My God, this is unbearable pain,'" the photographer said.
Adem then asked him for his name and that of his little girl.
"My daughter, Irmak," replied her father, Mesut Hancer.
"She spoke with difficulty, in a very low voice", the photojournalist continued.
"It was difficult to ask him any more questions as the residents around him asked people to remain silent so they could hear the voices of possible survivors trapped under the rubble."
At that moment, Adem immediately thought that that image could sum up all the pain of the victims of the earthquake, without however imagining the impact it would have had: taken up by the press all over the world, going viral on social networks, shared by hundreds of thousands times by shocked Internet users.
Adem has received thousands of messages, to express solidarity and their emotion in the face of the pain of this father, orphan of her daughter.
"I think it's a picture that will stay in my memory. Many have told me they will never forget this image."
Not even him.
