IT was only after Obaidullah’s little daughter kissed and hugged him, that he knew he was alive.

Of the five men who braved a swollen stream for hours as they awaited help in Sanagai village in Lower Kohistan, Obaidullah was the sole survivor.

The rest were swallowed by the raging torrent, one after the other.

When he met his family after the tragic incident in August, they stared at him in disbelief: he could scarcely believe it himself.

Only his one-year-old, innocent child — unaware of what had happened to her father — treated him like a “normal, living” human being, he says.

“I never imagined living without my friends, but that day I helplessly saw them wiped from existence,” he tells Dawn.

Videos of the incident that were widely shared on social media made for distressing viewing. They showed how the men plunged and disappeared into the torrent as onlookers gathered at the bank, amid cries for mercy from Allah.

Read: 'One by one they were swallowed by floodwater'

Subsequently, questions were raised about rescue efforts, particularly on why the men couldn’t be plucked to safety by a helicopter, despite there being sufficient time to do so.

Obaid’s friends were among the nearly 1,700 people who have lost their lives due to the floods across the country since mid-June. The deluge, wrought forth by record monsoon rains and a glacial melt in the mountains to the north, has impacted 33 million people, sweeping away homes, vehicles, crops and livestock in damages estimated to be over $30 billion.

‘Stubborn prince’

On Aug 25, as Obaidullah awoke early, it was already pouring with rain. “I rushed to Sanagai adda (terminal) where I had parked my jeep the night before,” he says. As he reached the terminal, he saw that his friends Anwar, Bilal, Riaz and Fazl were already there.

All drivers by profession hailing from the local community, the five of them would ferry passengers from Sanagai to Dubair and Pattan. However, the rough weather had forced them to abandon their routine and the only thing on their minds at the time was to find a safe parking space.

When someone mentioned the parking lot at Dubair Khwar hydropower plant, hardly a kilometre away, they jumped at the idea.

“As we revved up the engines and headed to our destination, Bilal’s vehicle wouldn’t start,” Obaidullah, 25, recalls.

They decided to stay with Bilal. He was their friend, after all. They switched off their pickups — often nicknamed ‘princes of the mountains’ by locals — and started to drag the stuck vehicle out.

But the stubborn ‘prince’ wouldn’t budge. So, they decided to leave it and take the working pickups to the power plant’s parking lot. They figured they could return with more men help them free the stranded vehicle.

Or so they thought.

Somewhere upstream, something was on the move at breakneck speed — tonnes of water was hurtling towards them, carrying mud, boulders and other debris.

Unbeknownst to them, the pretty stream would soon become a raging torrent.

Trapped in a torrent

The water level rose fast, sending them scurrying for safety. “We disembarked from our vehicles and started looking for a safer place, but we could only see the big rock inside the river,” Obaidullah says.

And so, their fates were sealed.

It was about 8am when they became trapped by the rising floodwaters. “I have never seen such a deluge in my entire life,” Obaidullah says. “We started contacting our friends and relatives for help.”

Onlookers began to gather on the opposite bank; some threw ropes at them to attempt a rescue, asking the men to tightly grab the lines and jump into the river so that they could be pulled to safety.

But the five men were scared. Besides, Obaidullah says, they could hardly hear the yelling crowd over the deafening roar of the river, which kept on swelling with every passing second.

Part of the indecision over whether to cling to the ropes was perhaps the hope that they would be safe as long as they stayed on the giant rock. But that hope sank fast when a bridge was washed away upstream, raising the water to dangerous levels. They were now shoulder-deep in it.

Finally, and belatedly, they decided to go for the ropes. “I wanted each of them to go first, but they all convinced me to move ahead,” Obaidullah says.

It was now past noon. Obaidullah grabbed onto the rope and jumped, leaving his friends behind. Little did he know that this would be their final goodbye.

As water engulfed the rock, Bilal, Anwar, Riaz and Fazl tried to hold on to the rope with all their might, but they were swept away by the surging current. “My friends just disappeared before my eyes, one after the other,” Obaidullah says.

After the incident, Obaidullah went into seclusion, even staying away from his own family for days. The trauma still gives him sleepless nights, though he says things are gradually returning to normal. However, he has to take medication to overcome the trauma.

Luckily, he has found something to divert his mind by immersing himself in flood relief activities, being conducted by a local NGO.

Published in Dawn, October 20th, 2022