Floods sweep future from Pakistan schoolchildren

Pakistani three-year-old Afshan's trip to school is a high-wire balancing act as she teeters across a metal girder spanning a trench of putrid floodwater, eyes fixed ahead.

After record monsoon rain flooded her classroom in the southeastern town of Chandan Mori, this is the route Afshan and her siblings now traverse to a tent where her lessons take place.

"It's a risky business to send children to school crossing that bridge," Afshan's father, Abdul Qadir, 23, told AFP.

"But we are compelled... to secure their future, and our own."

In Pakistan, where a third of the country lives in hardship on less than $4 a day, education is a rare ticket out of grinding poverty.

But this summer, floods destroyed or damaged 27,000 schools and spurred a humanitarian disaster which saw 7,000 more commandeered as aid centres, according to the United Nations Children's Fund.

The education of 3.5 million children has been disrupted as a result, the charity said.

"Everything has gone away, we lost our studies," said 10-year-old Kamran Babbar, who lives in a nearby tent city since his home and school were submerged.

- Tent schooling -

Before the rains, which have been linked to climate change, Afshan followed her sisters to a lime green schoolhouse.

Some two-and-a-half months after they finally abated, her school remains swamped by standing water.

More than 300 boys and girls have decamped to three tents where they sit on floors lined with plastic sheeting, answering teachers' questions in chorus.

As midday approaches the tents are baked by the sun, and students fan themselves with notebooks -- quenching their thirst with mouthfuls of cloudy, polluted floodwater.

Many cannot summon the strength to stand when called to answer questions by teacher Noor Ahmed.

"When they fall sick, and the majority of them do, it drastically affects attendance," he said.

In this conservative corner of Pakistan, many girls are already held back from school, groomed for lives of domestic labour.

Those students that were enrolled had their prospects dampened by hunger and malnutrition even before the monsoon washed away vast tracts of crops.

And over the past two years, the Covid-19 pandemic saw schools shut for 16 months.

The floods -- which put a third of Pakistan underwater and displaced eight million -- are yet one more hurdle many will not overcome.

"We are nurturing an ailing generation," Ahmed said.

- 'Traumatic impact' -

In the nearby town of Mounder, the monsoon storms tore the roof off the government school.

The walls are cracked and crumbling, and students now congregate outside, fearful of a collapse.

The boys learn under the shade of a tree in the courtyard, while the girls gather nearby in a donated tent.

"Such events will leave an everlasting traumatic impact on the girls," teacher Rabia Iqbal said.

"If we want to make them mentally healthy, we will have to immediately move them from tents to proper classrooms," she added.

But the return to school is unlikely to be swift.

Analysis suggests the bill for the reconstruction of schools and recovery of the education system will be nearly $1 billion -- the total repair bill is close to $40 billion -- in a nation already mired in economic turmoil.

Undaunted by the difficulties ahead, the girls of Chandan Mori's high school trudge every day to a temporary classroom three kilometres (two miles) away.

"We will not be defeated by such circumstances," 13-year-old Shaista Panwar said.

Flash floods sweep away houses, cars in Australian town
Sydney (AFP) Nov 16, 2022 - Entire buildings have been ripped from their foundations after flash floods swamped a small Australian town, with disaster management officials on Wednesday describing the deluge as a destructive "wall of water".

The town of Eugowra -- about 350 kilometres (220 miles) west of Sydney -- was inundated on Monday but it has been impossible to assess the extent of damage under the mud-brown waters.

Australia's east coast has been repeatedly swept by heavy rainfall in the past two years, driven by back-to-back La Nina cycles.

New South Wales State Emergency Service spokesman Steve Hall said a dire picture was emerging as response teams returned to the town of some 800 people.

"Everything they hold dear has been swept away in a wall of water," he said.

"All their possessions are covered in water and mud, they've got to come back and start all over, working through all the processes of grief, and loss and anger."

Stranded residents huddled on roofs as floodwaters peaked on Monday evening, before they were winched to safety by rescue helicopters.

Local MP Andrew Gee said Eugowra was "strewn" with cars swept up in the floods and that some buildings had been "picked up from their foundations and washed down streets".

"The residents talk about a tsunami coming at them," he told ABC, the country's national broadcaster.

The Wyangala Dam burst its banks on Sunday night following heavy rains, spilling some 230,000 megalitres into water catchments near Eugowra on Monday.

The town of Forbes -- about 40 kilometres (25 miles) west of Eugowra -- was evacuated as the floodwaters moved down the swollen river system.

Some 14 people had to be rescued after the Plainsman Motel in Forbes went under water on Tuesday evening.

It was the second time Forbes was evacuated due to flooding in the past two weeks.

Heavy storms earlier this year caused a widespread flooding disaster on Australia's east coast, in which more than 20 people died.

Tens of thousands of Sydney residents were ordered to evacuate in July when floods again swamped the city's fringe.

Scientists believe climate change could make periods of flooding more extreme because warmer air holds more moisture.

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Australians rescued from roofs after flash floods
Sydney (AFP) Nov 14, 2022
Rescuers plucked more than 100 people from their roofs Monday after a flash flood swamped a small Australian town and sent residents scurrying for safety, officials said. A weekend downpour over much of the already-sodden eastern state of New South Wales sent waters rising overnight, isolating some towns and communities. Australia's east coast has been repeatedly swept by heavy rainfall in the past two years, driven by back-to-back La Nina cycles. Many people in the town of Eugowra, with a p ... read more