Pictures of the Year: A Picture and its Story
Men carry nine-year-old Ademola Ayanbola, who was rescued at the site of a collapsed building containing a school in Nigeria's commercial capital of Lagos, Nigeria, March 13, 2019. Reuters Photographer Temilade Adelaja: "The boy lay wide-eyed on a bed of outstretched arms. The men who carried him, and others looking on, cheered at the sight of the youngster who seconds earlier had been pulled from the rubble of a four-storey building that collapsed in Lagos. Nine-year-old Ademola Ayanbola had been in a classroom on the top floor. He emerged with his face caked in white dust from the rubble and a bloody graze on the side of his head. His eyes were open, so we knew he was alive. He wasn't shouting or crying. He was so calm. People were shouting 'there's a child.' The men who surrounded him were rescue workers, residents and "area boys" Ð youths who roam parts of Lagos in gangs. The boy's father, Francis Ayanbola, had feared he would never see his son alive again. 'When I got there everything was flat,' he said. 'I was just crying. I was expecting the death of my son.' A friend eventually called Ayanbola to tell him his child was being treated at a hospital. 'When I finally held my son, I was so excited, I was so happy. It wasn't my son's dead body that I would have to carry,' he said." REUTERS/Temilade Adelaja/ File Photo SEARCH "POY STORIES 2019" FOR THIS STORY. SEARCH "WIDER IMAGE" FOR ALL STORIES. TPX IMAGES OF THE DAY
