On June 23, 2002, a 6.0 magnitude earthquake shook the Ghazvin province of Iran, killing hundreds of people and destroying dozens of villages.
Polaris Images photographer Eric Grigorian was in Changooreh the day the earthquake struck. With the light working against him, Grigorian snapped only a few shots. This one, of a young boy clutching his dead father’s pants while crouching near a fresh grave, won the World Press Photo of the year award for 2002. Grigorian said the boy seemed oblivious to what was going on around him– the digging of graves for the more than one hundred people who died that day in Changooreh alone.
Photo by Eric Grigorian for Polaris Images.