CRUSH:
On Friday, the director of Saeed Ahmad saved nearly 900 students on Friday in the Pakistan Swat valley, before the rising waters demolished their school.
“It was exactly 9 am when I had a last glance at the stream and it was going to burst its banks due to continuous rains,” said Ahmad, 59, director of the school, in Anadolu. Ahmad ordered an immediate evacuation of nearly 950 students registered.
In 15 minutes, the children and the teachers had left. A few minutes later, torrents of water broke into the school, carrying half of the building, its limits and the playground.
“About 900 students were present on August 15 when the flood hit our village and other adjacent areas,” said Sarwar Khan, local advisor. “This timely action of the principal saved 900 lives.”
The school was one of the dozens of educational establishments destroyed in floods that have wreaked havoc in several districts in the northwest of the province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, killing more than 350 people in the last three days, officials said.
Ahmad, who has been director for 12 years, recalled that the same building had been destroyed during the floods in July 1995. “There was a summer vacation; which is why there was no victim,” he said.
“This incident was in my mind when I decided to evacuate.” Pakistan is classified among the countries most vulnerable to the effects of climate change.
In 2022, catastrophic floods overwhelmed a third of the country, killing more than 1,700 people and causing around $ 32 billion in damage.
