The people who had carefully removed the dirt with their hands also found his phone and handed it over to the grieving man.
All around him the village of Tikht, once home to at least 100 families, was a jumble of logs, pieces of masonry as well as broken plates, shoes and the occasional intricately patterned rug.
“Life here is gone,” said Mohsin Aksum, 33, whose family lived in the small settlement. “The village is dead.”
traditionally built houses
Like many of the worst-affected villages, it was a small rural place where the vast majority of buildings were built from a traditional mixture of stone, wood and mortar made from clay.
Dozens of residents, grieving relatives and soldiers gathered at the ruins. Many people said they did not remember any previous earthquake in the area.
“People here didn’t think about this when they built their houses,” said Abdelrahman Edjal, a 23-year-old student who lost most of his family in the disaster.