Tales of flood victim

Despite losing an 11-year-old son, a Blantyre resident and flash floods survivor Patricia Nyawenda, has all praises for her husband, Maxwell, whom she has declared her hero.

Maxwell’s heroic acts in the course of the flash floods that hit Blantyre a few weeks ago, sweeping away houses, property and curtailing lives of some occupants of the houses in its wake, saw him single-handedly rescue his family and averting more loss of lives.

When the flood waters from Soche Hill in Blantyre hit the Nyawenda’s house down the hill in Chilobwe Township in the early hours of January 13, forcing the house’s walls to cave in with five family members in it, Maxwell Nyawenda’s instantaneous actions were more daring than those displayed in Hollywood movies.

Patricia, in an interview on Friday, said her husband’s bravery was displayed in less than 10 minutes after the house, property in it and the five members were being carried away by the floods that left them with literally nothing and took the invaluable life of one.

Said Patricia: “When the floods hit our house, Fortune [my child] was strapped at my back but a few seconds later, I was being carried away by the water all alone.

“I saw my husband, who had seconds earlier rescued himself, daring the running waters and diving back to rescue me. As the water was still pushing me down the stream, he stretched his arm and reached for my hand which he held firmly.

“He pulled me over to safer ground about 100 metres away from a place that used to be our home but had now turned into a river. I had no idea where Fortune was and whether we were going to find her.”

She said also missing were her two other children, 11-year old Mayeso and 13-year-old Dalitso, both boys.

Patricia said when ‘her hero’ was done with the ‘rescue the wife mission’, he looked around in search of other family members, the little daughter and the two boys.

But the humble and emotional Maxwell, in an interview, turned down the heroic tag, urging the family to look to God as their hero.

Maxwell said: “I appreciate she is looking at me as her hero because of my swift actions when the floods hit and swept us away together with our house, but I’m not, God is. It was God who was in control.”

Speaking emotionally Maxwell said: “As I was rescuing my wife and taking her to a safer ground, I heard the little daughter, Fortune, cry. I heard something like ‘Ama!’ [Mum!]’. I looked around and saw her with one arm stuck in the mud and her head above the water.

“I dived back into the water and reached out to her. I lifted her up, put her on my chest and struggled out of the water. I handed her to her mum and started going upstream, now in search of Mayeso and Dalitso.”

The man who was so brave and was telling the story with clarity as he was being interviewed, broke down as he explained to Nation On Sunday how he found Mayeso (who later died), with his leg trapped by a mango tree, moving objects carried by the water hitting him in the process, but still alive.

The weeping Maxwell said: “I found a woman, Mrs Kapote, our neighbour and head teacher at Chimwankhunda Primary School, on the site trying to free him. She was the first person to show up to offer help.

“My boy was in great pain. I joined her to help my son get off from the mango tree, and we managed to rescue him. Mrs Kapote, now joined by others, rushed Mayeso to Queen Elizabeth Central Hospital,” he said.

Maxwell said his worry was the safety of Dalitso, but was somehow relieved that at least his wife, daughter and Mayeso are alive.

He said he moved up and down the stream, but in less than 12 minutes, they saw Dalitso showing up to tell a story of how he grabbed a sugar cane plant that saved him about 200 metres away from where their house was.

Just like the rest of the family members, Maxwell said Dalitso had bruises all over his body. Amazingly, the little daughter only sustained a single small cut on her head—“Wonders of God,” he said.

Maxwell said he was astonished how other people can behave at the expense of other people’s misfortunes. He said some women fought for property that was scattered such as buckets and there was nothing the family recovered.

He said at about 10 am they were taken to QECH and while they were receiving treatment, they were briefed about Mayeso’s condition.

Maxwell said: “My son died around noon the same day, but they [the people] kept this as a secret to us because we were still psychologically affected.

“When colleagues from Southend [International High School where Maxwell works] came to the hospital that day, I told them the good thing was we were all alive, but deep down their hearts they knew I had lost a son, but they could not tell me.

“Later in the evening when we left for home, two neighbours came to brief me that Mayeso was dead, and they said it was up to me to tell my wife or not.

“I made a choice not to tell her that evening because she was too weak with the injuries. I told her the following morning, the day of burial. Of course, throughout the night she kept telling me she was suspicious Mayeso was dead.”

Maxwell said he did not know where the courage and strength to save his family members came from.

Maxwell said: “I acted so fast and with unprecedented courage and strength. I managed to get out of the running water but I risked getting washed away on two occasions I got back into the water to rescue my wife and my daughter.

“It was all God, He did it for us. It wasn’t that easy. I had only two options—I had to watch my wife and daughter die or I take a risk to save them. But taking the risk seemed not an option; after all, because I just did it in a jiffy.”

Maxwell regretted that Mayeso died in hospital after he managed to pull him out of water alive, but he praised God that out of five of them, four survived.

Patricia said they have all the reasons to thank God for saving their lives.

Patricia said: “As a family, we have lost everything. We had our own three-bed-room house, property in it; they are all gone. Anything you can think of, including academic certificates.

“But as I said, I know it is all a miracle and God’s mercy that He allowed four of us to survive out of five in such a calamity.

“Think of what happened with the iron sheets and the poles after the walls caved in. Think of the harm those iron sheets could have caused to our bodies. But look, this little daughter survived that.”

A witness, Jonas Muyape, who got to the scene 30 minutes later, said he did not believe what he saw.

He said at the place where the Nyawenda family stood, it was a dambo land, with a small stream beside the house, but did not believe it when he found a full-fledged river passing right through where the house was.

Muyape said: “You cannot even begin to imagine how four family members survived from this calamity. God indeed did it for them.”

The family, which is being kept by a tenant living next to where their house was, wake up every morning only to be reminded of the horror they faced a stone’s throw away.

Maxwell, by choice, has resumed working, simply to keep away from the sight that haunts him. He said his employers have allowed him to fully recover but has been to his workplace twice for the past two weeks.