In the middle of the night, Yasmin Akram and her family received an order to leave a hotel, where they were staying overlooking the Swat River in the mountains of northwest Pakistan, immediately, and a few hours later the building was swept away by a flood.
Yasmin’s family left the city of Lahore to escape the summer heat and came to vacation in this region known as “Switzerland of Pakistan”, where the weather is mild and nature is green, but she faced a disaster that is one of the worst in the country’s history.
The family rushed into the darkness outside the Honeymoon Hotel in the Kalam Valley and took refuge at the foot of a mountain, from where after hours they watched the hotel collapse and drift with the river’s overflowing water.
Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif declared that Pakistan is facing “the worst floods in its history”, with a third of the country inundated and more than 1,100 dead and more than 33 million people affected since the start of the rainy season in June.
“There was chaos, everyone was rushing to escape,” said Yasmin, 53, on Tuesday, after being evacuated from Mingora, the largest city in Swat region.
And she continued, “We heard like a boom, and then I saw torrents flooding the hotel. The roaring of the water was very strong, as if something had exploded.”
Floods swept away the hotel
In the panic of the camp, I watched a woman trying in vain to catch her young son before the water washed him away.
“The child was screaming, but the water was suppressing his voice,” she said with emotion. “The mother tried to save him, but she couldn’t.”
The child is among the 21 flood victims counted so far in the area, most of whom died in the collapse of their homes.
The horrific night of 25 August only became known after hotel guests and other tourists were evacuated in helicopters, which became the only way to reach the remote valleys of the region.
The water has caught the tourists off guard
Along the Swat River, the remains of swept bridges, cut roads and hotels trying to fight back can be seen on the banks.
The water level began to decline, but the restoration of land lines of communication with the neighboring major cities will likely take several days.
According to Junaid Khan, a senior official in the local administration in the Swat region, about two hundred thousand people are still cut off from the rest of the country.
About 600 tourists were evacuated, most of whom were transported by the army in helicopters, with priority given to patients, women and children.
Thousands of food aid packages were distributed, some of which were dropped by helicopters from the air when the flood of victims prevented them from landing.
After evacuating Yasmine, her husband, who suffers from a kidney disease, and their 12-year-old daughter, residents of the area hosted them for a few days in different houses some distance from the riverbed.
But their two adult sons remained in the valley because it was not possible to evacuate them immediately.
“It’s as if a new life has been written for me,” Yasmin said after landing safely at an airport.