Rescue attempts at the scene
Photo: Doron Ben Harush
Survivor recounts near-death experience in flash flood disaster
It all happened in moments, said a survivor of the Negev flash flood, who recounts how he turned to see a group of his friends swept away by a giant wave of water and rocks; ' They had no chance of surviving,' he laments.
Still shaken from his near-death experience and the loss of ten of his friends in a flash flood at Zafit Stream on Thursday morning, one of the 15 young survivors of the tragedy gathered his thoughts Friday to recount the disaster.
The fateful day started pleasant, even quite hot. Later, a soft drizzle started, and it was at this time when a torrent of water caught them completely off guard.
Survivors taking refuge near the stream (Photo: Haim Horenstein)
In a conversation with Ynet, the youth—speaking on condition of anonymity—said his life was saved simply by chance, as he stepped towards one of the trip's two guides along with a group of girls to ask him a question.
"I went to ask the instructor a question, about a meter from the girls, and then we heard the noise of clashing stones and a loud noise like that of sprinklers, but eight times stronger."
The noise, he said, was sudden torrential rain that just reached their area.
He said the medic accompanying them then shouted that there is a flood and demanded that everyone climb the stream's slope.
Rescue attempts (Photo: Ma'ayan Zafrani)
"Stones half the size of a man were hurled at a nearby wall and exploded and it made a big boom in the stream," he said. "Everyone heard it. The wall began to collapse and bits of it fell and everyone yelled to jump.
"It took only a few seconds. I jumped to a higher point in the slope and when I turned around to see what was happening with the girls the water had already reached my knees."
The young man's chilling testimony illustrated the exact moment when terror struck, as he saw the group of girls that was just a few feet from him vanish in an instant.
"A five-foot wave just rammed the girls and swept them away," he recounted. "The wave was powerful; I never saw anything like it. They had no chance of surviving. No one expected it at all."
The ten who perished in the disaster
The tour guides and the medic started shouting at the remaining youths to climb to higher ground, forbidding them from coming down to try to help those swept away in the current, he said.
"We could not reach them. It would have been impossible. If I had stepped a little further down, I'd have been carried away too," he said.
"Two guys tried climbing higher to call for help on their mobile phones because there was no reception down near the stream, and two others tried to search for the girls and those who were swept away, hoping they might have gotten stuck somewhere on the way.
"We called their named because we thought maybe someone was still there, but no one answered. There was only an insanely huge flow of water full of boulders, waves and whirlpools."
The ten teens who were killed—nine girls and one boy—have been identified and buried on Friday.
