We meet Ahmat in one of the few functioning airports in the seismic zone.
He traveled overnight from South Wales to reach his family home of Tut in Turkey’s Adiyaman province.
His brother Ali was killed after his house collapsed following the earthquake.
Ali’s wife is seriously injured and his two nieces are still buried among the rubble.
We decide to take him, or at least to get as close as possible to the village.
Halfway there, Ahmat receives a phone call from his surviving niece that no one is coming to help the family.
He is overwhelmed with grief.
Once in the mountains, we climb a winding road.
We pass fallen rocks from snow-capped peaks and collapsed roads that lead us to the village.
What we see when we get home is heartbreaking.
Ahmat tells us: “It’s amazing. I’ve never seen this before. I’m really shocked. I’ve never seen this happen in my life…never”
His sister, Fara, hugs him and the siblings hold on tight.
She moaned in grief.
Also on hold is her surviving niece Sidka.
The neighbors come one by one to pay their respects to the family bound by grief.
Ahmat says it was a home full of joy and love, his family now destroyed.
He says residents want to know where the government help is.
The truth is that the government is overwhelmed.
In these remote snowy villages, they will have a long wait.
A man faced with the enormity of it all in this land of countless tragedies.
