IBRA, MAY 20 - It was a happy day struck by tragedy when a family lost six of its members after their vehicle swept away in the gushing rain waters in Wadi Bani Khalid. The whole family, except the father Sardar Fazal Ahmed, a pharmacist are feared dead amid search operations by the authorities. The parents of Sardar were in Oman to celebrate the birth of his child. They were supposed to fly back on Monday. But destiny had another plan. The rented car in which all seven members of the family were travelling in the scenic Wadi Bani Khalid was washed away by gushing waters in torrential rains on Saturday evening. But as the fate had it, Sardar managed to catch hold of a branch of a palm tree and pulled himself out of the fast-flowing waters to escape.
His parents, Khan and Shabana Khan, his wife Arshi, daughter Sidra, 4, son Zaid, 2, and newborn infant son Nooh, were all swept away. “Sardar has been on his vacation since May 1, but decided to stay back in Oman to facilitate the visit of his parents to Oman and spend time with the new born”, a colleague and a friend of Sardar told the Observer. The trip to Wadi Bani Khalid was part of their tour of different scenic places in the Sultanate, he said. Later, the car in which they travelled was retrieved from some 7 km away. It was found almost buried in the mud that was accumulated by floods. “We were told that the car was retrieved from a distance of 7 km. It was like a mangled piece of metal buried inside the mud mass,” Mohammad Asim, Sardar’s colleague, said.
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