“Had it not been thanks to this cabinet, we would have drowned yesterday.” Teacher Thai Thi Tuyet Hong pointed to a corner, where the classroom’s filing cabinet lay drenched in a mushy layer of mud and sand.
According to Tuoi Tre, Hong was among four teachers at Phu Yen province’s An Hiep Kindergarten who recently made national headlines for a selfless act which saved the lives of 12 schoolchildren.
On the morning of December 13, only 30 students turned up to An Hiep due to heavy rains. By noon, the rains became significantly stronger and the school’s facilities were quickly submerged. An Hiep’s management board decided to call the kids’ families to come pick them up, but only 20 were able to leave. Just half an hour later, the four teachers and 13 children were trapped in school as the water level outside reached 1.5 meters, making it impossible for them to escape.
“Initially, I thought it was just normal [rain], but the water rose so rapidly,” Hong told the news source. “I’ve lived here for 40 years but I’ve never witnessed such rapid flooding.”
Amid the rising water level, the teachers decided to get the schoolchildren to cling to the window bars and stand atop of the school’s filing cabinets. Each of the women looked after a window and a storage top.
The window where the children clung on while waiting for help. Photo by Kim Thuy via Tuoi Tre.
“We put the table sets together. The kids both stood on our shoulders and the window ledge. The higher the water got, the more chairs we stood on,” Nguyen Thi Hoa, vice principal of the school shared. “We all decided that we would rather die than letting our students drown.”
After a while, a band of men from nearby villages heard the group’s cry for help and tried to approach them. The powerful current posed a lot of problems in the rescue mission, but eventually they managed to save the entire party of 17 by using turtle shell-shaped plastic toys as rafts.
The story of how four brave teachers risked their life to protect their students quickly gained traction on Vietnamese social media.
The reactions were unanimous: everybody was touched by the act. Tuoi Tre’s editorial team has since visited the school and given the four women the “Companion Around Us” award for their selfless act. The prize includes a certificate and VND7 million.
How the local men rescued the teachers and students. Photo by Ngoc Thang via Tuoi Tre.
On December 15, Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc also sent a personal letter applauding the teachers.
“On behalf of the government, I send my commendation to the teachers of the An Hiep Kindergarten and locals who helped the children,” the letter read, according to Tuoi Tre.
He also promised to expedite the process of cleaning and repairing of the school and urged provincial agencies to outfit schools in the region with necessary safety equipment to avoid similar incidents in the future.
However, just 24 hours after the teachers received the prime minister’s letter and Tuoi Tre’s award, the downtrodden kindergarten once again suffered a flash flood.
They told the news source that the facility was hit by a deluge overnight on December 15. The calamity was not as severe as the previous one, but a lot of teaching instruments, textbooks and playground equipment recently restored by the school and local residents was once again damaged.
The children's parents collecting their kids from the submerged school. Photo by Ngoc Thang via Tuoi Tre.
[Photos via Tuoi Tre]
