Afghanistan floods: Victims in Baghlan tell BBC of devastation

Homes were swept away, roads were destroyed, and hundreds were killed in the extraordinary floods that occurred in north-east Afghanistan last week.

Many of those affected reside in remote regions that are only a few hours ‘ drive away from the nearest city.

The BBC spent a day in one of the worst-affected villages in the area, gathering testimonials and videos that were shot at the time to compile accounts of extraordinary rescues of children from flood waters.

Noor Ahmad and his relatives were inside when the waters came in last Friday.

He made the decision to evacuate all eight of his household people, leaving them with no other choice but to flee.

On all edges, they could see the stream of murky, red-brown liquid passing by.

The windows of the yard erupted first. Therefore the building collapsed, sending all eight into the heavy, fast- flowing waters.

” When the wall fell, I remember thinking I had lost everything”, Noor tells me. We are seated in a cloth camp that was pitched on the spot where his house was once affixed.

” I thought, we are all finished. I was under ocean and was hoping,’ oh God, please take my life so my troubles will be over.'”

Dar recalls hitting his head on the walls, rocks, and trees foundations as he was swept away. His left hand and right feet are firmly bandaged, as is his mind.

” The body on my mind was sliced empty, they had to weave a area this long ago up”, he says, showing me the palm of his hand for measurement. His foot is covered in reduces all the way. ” My legs and hands are broken, but I am also thanking God I am dead and in this state”.

Noor escaped punishment by grabbing an olive tree’s trees. But when he pulled himself to health, his 10- year- older daughter Zulaikha had disappeared.

A mosque that was the site of another evacuation is located across the street from Noor’s home.

In a video taken before, children sat huddled up and shaking on the roof, caked in thick, sticky mud. All had been dragged out of the storm waters.

One of the people who assisted in saving them was Habib Ullah.

He says,” I was in the dome when the storm broke through the entrance.” ” We were all under water. Some of us even managed to climb through the roof. With the help of others, we knocked through a glass. My companion pulled the kids up onto the roof after I tied them with a blanket.

He directs them through each. Some people’s faces and eyes have cuts and bruises on them.

In full we count eight children, the youngest only three months old.

However inland, 18- yr- old Elhamuddin recounts how he spotted something during the floods, some motion bobbing against a huge tree, lodged against the wall of his family’s field.

It was 10- year- old Zulaikha- Noor Ahmad’s daughter.

She was floating on her back close to a tree, afraid to try to stand in case the current carried her away, Elhamuddin says, without being able to grab onto roots or rocks to stop her.

” My father and mother said do n’t go there, you will be taken by the flood, but my heart felt for her”, Elhamuddin explains. ” Finally, it made me go and bring her to my home. I had the impression that I could do it in myself.

He points to his chest height.

” The water came up to here. She arrived at our house with me and I took her on my back. Most parts of her body were injured”.

In a video taken after she is rescued, Zulaikha appears covered in mud, shaken but alive. Her family tell us she is now recovering at a relative’s house.

Elhamuddin, his sister and mother say they helped to clean Zulaikha’s wounds before sending her on to hospital.

” I am proud of them”, Elhamuddin’s father tells me. ” They are the pride of all Afghanistan. They are the world’s greatest pride.

Noor had seen the family that saved his daughter’s life for the first time since she was saved today.

Elhamuddin begins to sob when his father and his father arrive at Noor’s tent and pulls his scarf to his face.

” All that is left of my home is four bricks”, Noor says. Even though I do n’t have anything right now, even if I gave you the entire world, it would n’t be on par with what you have given me.