In just 15 minutes, she was gone"
26 January 2011
Amjad with his nephews and nieces
“We didn’t hear any warning that the water was coming in. We were in the kitchen and Nazia and Shazia, my sister and cousin came running in, fleeing the water. We didn’t notice them leaving the house.”
A member of the village alerted the community that two girls had drowned in the floodwater and warned families to count their relatives. Amjad’s mother noticed that Shazia and Nazia weren’t at home, so Amjad went out to look for them.
“I went out and waded through the water. It had only been about 10 or 15 minutes. My foot touched something in the water and Nazia swept between my feet. I grabbed her feet and pulled her out, but she had already died. We just put her on a wooden bed, and went to my uncle's house, where we dug her grave and prayed the funeral prayer with about 80 people. In just 15 minutes, she was gone.
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My cousin Shazia was engaged and preparing for her wedding. We searched
for her, we looked everywhere. My uncle and two neighbours in a boat,
and I sat on a tyre to stay afloat. After three days we were searching
by some trees when we saw a piece of cloth in the water. We went over to
look and my uncle pulled her into his boat. She was just the same as my
sister, she looked unharmed. After taking her home, we shrouded her and
performed the funeral prayer. We buried Nazia and Shazia in the same
place. They were both 18, they were cousins and they were friends.”
Amjad’s
family sought refuge from the floods at his uncle’s house, “We had to
kill lots of snakes, they were hiding in the walls.” After escaping the
floods at his uncle’s home, Amjad and his whole family had to flee to
drier land at the floods worsened.”
“The water was about nine
feet deep, moving very fast. The men could swim, but the women couldn’t
so we tied inflated tyre tubes under some wooden beds and two or three
women sat on each one. There were 8 women and 5 children. We'd get
washed back with the water; it took us two hours to get out.
We
couldn't take anything with us. Our cereal was all rotten and infested
with insects. The smell was awful. We had locked all the doors to the
house and what was stored inside the rooms was protected but everything
outside was gone. We couldn't save the blankets.”
Over 2,000 people lost their lives in the floods and hundreds of thousands of acres of crops were destroyed.
“The
fields were all damaged and the maize crops were destroyed. There was
about 400,000 (£3,000/ $4,600) rupees worth of damage.”
Amjad works as a building labourer but is repairing his own home before he can return to work.
“The
children in my family have had skin problems, fevers, chest infections,
so we’ve been getting them treated at Islamic Relief’s health camps.
Islamic Relief has given my family food, hygiene kits, kitchen sets,
blankets, household kits and jerry cans. We also received cooked food at
sunrise and sunset during Ramadan.”
Our house is okay, but there are others living in tents in the rain and we’re happy that they are getting help to rebuild them.”
Islamic Relief has rebuilt 300 houses since the floods, help us to rebuild more.
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