Australian man Ilyas Pahali sat for minutes behind the body of his uncle, cross-legged and silent, after a week-long mission to dig it out of the rubble in the decimated city of Antakya in southern Türkiye.
Can "John" Pahali, 67, from Sydney, was visiting family in Antakya when a magnitude-7.8 quake struck south-east Türkiye and northern Syria one week ago, killing tens of thousands of people and burying him under the ruins of a house.
Ilyas Pahali flew to Türkiye to find his uncle, a popular op shop volunteer, who he described as the "epicentre" of his family.
But he and many quake survivors were forced to search for loved ones on their own.
Rescue workers arrived days late and in insufficient numbers in Antakya and surrounding Hatay Province.
They missed crucial time to save victims in the rubble in freezing temperatures, sparking public fury against the Turkish government over the flawed response.
Ilyas Pahali believes his uncle could have been saved had rescuers reached him sooner.
"My uncle could have survived," he told the ABC, minutes after carrying the body from the ruins.
"From what I've heard, in the first day, there was someone calling out from that building.
"He was calling out but no-one's gone [to him]."
How the recovery mission unfolded
Ilyas Pahali and his relatives spent four days searching for help to dig through the ruins of a collapsed house, where Can Panali had been visiting family.
Yesterday, as hopes of finding survivors dwindled and many rescuers abandoned their operations, Mr Pahali finally convinced a Thai rescue team with a thermal camera to survey the site.
They spotted his uncle's arm in the rubble.
Today, three weary rescuers joined him to dig his uncle's body from the crushed concrete, wooden planks and twisted metal.
In the end, it took just three hours.
Mr Pahali and the men lifted the body out of the rubble and carried it uphill to a street where it could finally be collected.
He washed his hands with a plastic water bottle, and texted the news to his family as tears rolled down his dust-smeared face.
Finally, he lowered his body and crossed his legs for a few minutes of silence, sitting behind the body of his uncle under the awning of a damaged shop.
Mr Pahali said he felt a sense of "relief".
"The worst part was not having a body," he said.
"Now we've got a body to bury."
Anger grows in quake-struck Türkiye
Can Pahali, known as John, was a beloved member of the Glebe community in inner Sydney, volunteering at the local op shop and soup kitchen.
He moved in with Ilyas and his mother in their Merrylands home, in Sydney's west, during the COVID pandemic.
He was visiting his sister in her house when the earthquake struck, transforming the city of Antakya into a wasteland of toppled buildings, dead bodies and desperate survivors.
His sister managed to survive by running to her kitchen, which somehow stayed intact, but Can Pahali was missing, feared dead.
Three Australians have been confirmed dead in the quake, which is so far known to have killed more than 33,000 people in south-east Türkiye and northern Syria.
Mr Pahali said rescuers had been overwhelmed by the scale of the destruction.
"They were only looking for live bodies and not interested in the dead," he said.
"Unless they hear a sound [in the rubble], no-one will come to help. My cousin's been walking around for days asking for help.
"They're all interested in the big apartments. Everyone's focused on them."
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has acknowledged some initial "shortcomings" with the quake response.
But accused critics in Hatay Province of lying about the emergency operations and vowed to "keep record of all the dissenters".
His government has also drawn criticism for poor preparations and shoddy building standards in the quake-prone region.
The outbreak of public fury is rare in Türkiye, where protests are banned, dissenters are muzzled and many fear the consequences of criticising the government.
"Everybody, even the rescuers, they are all angry with the Turkish Government," Ilyas Pahali said.
"I don't want to say too much because it is a bit risky for me.
"I will have a lot to say when I return [to Australia]."
Mr Pahali said he planned to remain in south-east Türkiye to help the many survivors still searching for their loved ones, and who have no shelter, electricity, fuel or running water.
