Pictures of the year- April

Competitors continue to run towards the finish line of the Boston Marathon as an explosion erupts nearby in this photo, exclusively licensed to Reuters by photographer Dan Lampariello.

Dan Lampariello: “When I woke up on April 15, I had no idea I was going to take a photo that would be seen by millions of people around the globe.

I came to watch the marathon, as I do every year, with my family and girlfriend. Patriots' Day in Boston is always a day of camaraderie, joy and excitement. No one ever thinks that something will ruin that.

When the first bomb went off at the finish line no one had any idea what had happened. All we saw was a large amount of smoke rising into the sky. So I just started taking pictures of the situation – taking them as fast as my finger could press the capture button on my iPhone.

That’s when the second explosion went off. Everyone I was with turned and ran. We had no idea what was coming next. All we knew is that we needed to get out of the area.

I had no idea what I had caught on my iPhone until I started looking back through the photos once we were in a safe spot. I immediately posted it to Twitter so people could see what had happened.”

Camera: iPhone

Roma Hattu, a pregnant Rohingya Muslim woman displaced by violence in Myanmar, grimaces while experiencing labour pains on the floor of a former rubber factory now serving as her family's shelter.

“On the bare concrete floor of an abandoned factory, Roma Hattu was feeding her two children a simple meal of rice with nothing. The ‘dirty as hell’ factory, with its black walls and broken windows made beautiful light and that was the first thing I noticed. I peeked from behind a flimsy, tattered yellow rice sack used as a curtain for her private space and had a quick moment of eye contact with the woman. I showed my camera, she nodded her head ‘yes,’ so I came in to take pictures.

The 30-year-old is a stateless Muslim Rohingya displaced by violence between Buddhists and Muslims and is spending her time with thousands of others in a strip of basic camps just outside Sittwe, in Myanmar’s Rakhine state.

Being Rohingya today is like being a Bosnian in the nineties, but a thousand times worse – killed and expelled for ethnicity and religion, cornered, besieged, powerless, hungry… It is the ugly and important part of a huge story I cover – changes in a country that is waking up from decades of isolation.

What I didn’t see at first was how seriously the woman was pregnant. I asked a few questions through my assistant and she told me it was her ninth month and the baby could come out at any time. Roma’s husband was out looking for something to eat – they had no money for food or to pay a doctor. She would deliver her baby here, on the concrete floor of an abandoned rubber factory.

I left the shelter to find my colleagues from the Reuters team travelling with me and when we came back the woman was rolling around on the floor breathing heavily and moaning, obviously in great pain. Her husband was back and we realised how desperate the situation was. I took a few more pictures but then it was time to put the cameras down and help the helpless.”

Camera: Canon EOS 5D Mark III, lens 24mm, f2.2, 1/100, ISO 400

The hand of a garment worker is seen among the rubble of the Rana Plaza complex, a factory building which collapsed in Savar, Bangaldesh, killing over 1,000 people.

“It was 10 p.m. Suddenly, I got a call from my office and I had to move to Savar and the Rana Plaza building site immediately. The way to Savar from Dhaka was silent, dark and full of fear. I found an ambulance heading to the site. I started to follow it on my bike.

The nearer I got to the site, the [more the] whole environment was full of the smell of dead bodies. I started taking pictures as soon as I reached the area. After that I took a break and sat on a pile of bricks. The rescue workers were tirelessly pulling up bodies from the rubble.

Suddenly a rescue worker shouted, “A body is under the rubble.” I attempted to get closer but a member of the army stopped me because of security reasons. I kept waiting and came back to the same place after a while, looking for an opportunity. The security personnel had changed over the last few hours. I continued to wait there to take a photograph.

There were some other photographers arriving from Dhaka. It was 11a.m. Suddenly, rescue workers found a different body, and the photographers began taking pictures. I stayed back and slowly moved toward the body. I saw the hand of a garment worker through the rubble. It seemed like the person was struggling hard to live. I started taking pictures of the hand amid a strong dead body smell. But the security force returned and stopped me.

The whole thing reverberated in my mind on my way back to Dhaka. I was thinking how soon the other survivors would be rescued. I couldn’t remove it from my thoughts - not ever, as the tragedy of Rana Plaza cannot be erased from our minds.”

Camera: Canon 1D Mark IV, lens 28-105mm, f10, 1/400, ISO 1600