Panaga School flood disappoints pupils

BANDAR SERI BEGAWAN

PRIMARY school pupils in Seria have been forced to miss lessons because their school was flooded during recent storms.

Panaga School headmistress Hajah Nur Zurina Hj Assim told The Brunei Times that although the school is still open, parents were advised to keep their children at home for safety’s sake.

Hjh Nur Zurina said earthworms and snakes were regularly being washed into the grounds of the school, which is close to a river.

“It does smell very bad, and 70 per cent of the school is currently covered with debris as a result of the unfortunate incident.

“Therefore, we do not want the children to come to school until it is really clean again,” the headmistress said. The school was deluged by heavy rain on Monday, which Hjh Nur Zurina described as “really bad”. “The water level was about 0.4 metres, and it flooded the offices and damaged the floors, as well as items such as books and iPads that are used in the school.

“The water would then subside each day after that, but the school would be flooded again, whenever it rained overnight,” she said.

The headmistress added that the situation at the school was slightly better now as the floodwater level had dropped. However, she said it was still difficult for parents and children to get to the school.

Hjh Nur Zurina said about a fifth of her pupils attended the first day of school yesterday.

Hjh Nur Zurina said flooding at the school was a new phenomenon so they were unprepared when it happened at the end of last year.

“Such flooding has never happened throughout the history of this school before, so we really did not expect that water could actually come all the way into the school. “If this had not happened, we would not have known that this could happen.” Making matters worse, she said the school was in the process of renovating two of its buildings.

“As a result of this incident, we will make sure that the new buildings will be on ‘standby’, to be ready to withstand any potential incidents that may occur as a result of heavy rain again in the future,” she said. Hjh Nur Zurina said the school had requested help from the Fire and Rescue Department but were told that there was nothing firefighters could do. The headmistress said senior officials from the Ministry of Education visited the school yesterday to assess the situation. 

The Brunei Times