Dhaka Crash: “A sound I have never heard

“It was like 30 or 40 thunderstorms that fell from the sky,” said Akhnaf bin Hasan, an 18-year-old student whose voice was still trembling two days after the crash.

“I never heard a sound like that in my life – it comes from the sky. In a second, the fighter flew over my head and crashed into the school building.”

The Bangladesh Air Force plane fell from the sky and rammed into the Milestone School and College Primary School building in Dhaka on Monday, marking Bangladesh’s most deadly aviation disaster.

At least 31 people were killed – many of them students under 12 – as they waited for them to be taken, to go to training hours, or to catch a quick breakfast.

Dressed in his chocolate brown shirt and black pants, the school badge was nailed, Ahaph was talking to a friend under the sunshade on the playground of the scattered 12th Milestone School campus and college, in the busy neighborhood of Utara. He says he was only 30 feet when the plane wore the building.

Ahnaf instinctively descended to the ground, heading with his hands. When he opened his eyes, the world around him had changed.

“All I saw was smoke, fire and darkness. The kids were screaming. Everything was chaos,” he told the BBC on the phone.

The Air Force said the training aircraft had experienced mechanical damage shortly after departure. The pilot, who dumped shortly before the crash, later died in hospital.

“I saw the pilot throw away,” Aknaf said. “After the crash, I looked up and saw his white parachute descending. He broke through the calf roof of another building. I heard he was alive after landing, he even asked for water. Helicopter came and took him.”

As the smoke and flames spread through the school, Akneff’s instincts are kicking. A blazing cleavage from the burning plane had hit his backpack, sang his pants and burned his hand. “It was so hot, but I threw the bag aside and rushed to help.”

It ran to the concrete path that separates the playground from the two -storey building of the primary school. The plane crashed into the gate, buried six to seven feet in the ground, then tilted up, crashed on the first floor and exploded. Two classrooms called Cloud and Sky have become the basis of the crash.

Near the entrance, Aknaf saw the student’s body torn apart.

“It seemed that the plane hit him before he struck the building,” he said. “He was a younger than us.”

The campus with five buildings, usually buzzing with student talk, had become a scene of fire, split metals and screaming.

Against Dima, Aknaf noticed a young student whose skin was burned and whose body was removed from the flame by a friend.

“His friend told me,” I can’t do it myself. Can you help me? “That’s why I lifted the boy, put it on my shoulder and transferred it to the medical hall.”

Another woman ignited. The children ran out of the building, stripped up to their pads, their clothes burned, and their skin washed in the intense heat.

“On the second floor, the students were stuck and screaming,” Aknaf said. “We found a grid to get to one of the gates that was set on fire. The army and fire service came in and saved some of them.”

Aknaf, as well as many others, quickly took roles far beyond his age.

“We helped control the crowds, we kept people away from the fire. We cleared the ambulances and helped fire crews pull their pipes through the campus.”

At one point he gave the shirt from his back – literally.

“A student had nothing for him. I took off my uniform and gave it to him. I continued with naked bodysuits with rescue.”

But the weight of so many young lives lost in school is something that he says will be difficult to overcome.

One of them was 11-year-old Vacia Firki Nidi.

She had gone to school this morning like any other day. When the plane struck, her father was in prayer – he ran barefoot from the mosque as soon as he heard.

Her uncle, Sien Bilal Hossein, told me that the family spends all night in search of more than half a dozen hospitals.

“We went through Uttar, helpless. Someone said that six bodies were in one hospital.

The pain of the loss of a child was complicated only by the bureaucratic maze.

Although he identifies her daughter through a dental characteristic and a lens in the eyes, the family was told that the body would not be released without DNA tests – because there were many plaintiffs.

First, a police report had to be submitted. Then the father gave blood to the military hospital. Now they were waiting for the mother’s sample to be drawn. “We know this is her,” said G -N Hossein. “But they will not betray the body yet.”

Vacia, the youngest of three siblings, lived in the neighborhood with his uncle in an old predecessor home in Diabari. “She grew up before our eyes – playing on the roofs sitting under the coconut tree next to our house, always pressed her baby niece. She was just a child and loved children,” said Gn Hossein.

“I only saw her the previous day,” he said. “If it wasn’t for this coaching after school, she would have been alive.”

In the chaos and the heart, which followed the crash, there were moments of narrow escape and great courage.

A mother told BBC Bengali how she gave her child the money for Tiffin instead of packing lunch this morning. During the break, he came out to buy food – and unconsciously avoided death only on a occasion. “He’s alive because I didn’t give him tifin,” she said.

Another parent’s tragedy was unthinkable. He lost both children within hours. His daughter died first. After burying her, he returned to the hospital, just to wake up from a short nap and tell him that his young son had also died.

And then there was Mahreen chowdhuryS The teacher responsible for children in class 3 to 5 helped at least 20 students escape from inferno.

Refusing to leave, she continued to return to the flames – until her body was burned over 80%. Chowdhary died a hero, saving the lives of too young to save themselves.

It is like living in a nightmare for staff at school.

“I can no longer function normally. Every time I look at the building, a wave of grief crashes over me. I feel lost, unwell and depressed. I lost three children I knew, one of them was my colleague,” said Shaficcul Islam Tulul, a 43-year-old Bengal teacher.

Subsequently, questions and confusion turned around the scale of the tragedy.

The government reported 29 deaths and more than 100 injuries, with seven victims not yet identified. However, military relations with the public (ISPR) set the fee of 31.

According to the Ministry of Health, 69 people were injured in efforts to crash and rescue efforts – including 41 students.

Social media are buzzing with speculation about possible concealment, claiming that Bangladesh’s armed forces are strongly denied. Meanwhile Bbc bengali that families have reported that five people are still missing.

For eyewitnesses and surviving injuries are detained.

“I haven’t slept for two days,” Aknaf says. “Every time I look outside, I feel like a fighter is coming to me. The screams are still in my ears.”

Fighters and commercial aircraft often fly over the campus, located near the Daca International Airport. “We’re on the flight path,” Aknaf said.

“We are used to seeing planes over our heads – but we never imagined that one would fall from the sky and hit us.”

Still, the horrors of that day pursue him mercilessly. The screams, fire and charred bodies of classmates and teachers refuse to fade.

“When I close my eyes, it’s not the darkness I see – it’s smoke.”