Fifth body found in search for swept away expat family

Muscat: The body of an infant male has been recovered from a wadi 60km from where an Indian expat’s entire family was swept away in flash floods.
Sardar Fazal Ahmed lost his mother, father, wife and three children after the car they drove to a scenic picnic spot was washed away by torrential flooding.
Sardar, a pharmacist from Ibra, only escaped after hauling himself to the shore using a palm tree branch. Search and rescue teams have been scouring the wadis for almost two weeks in efforts to locate the bodies of the family members.
Yesterday, the teams, using night vision goggles and sniffer dogs, located remains they believe to be of Sardar’s 28-day-old baby son Nooh.
Sardar told Times of Oman he has yet to formally identify the body, but he has been informed that it is his baby boy.
“The body recovered by the authorities has been taken to Muscat and I haven’t observed it yet for the identification. However, according to the forensic results, I have been informed that the body is of my youngest son, Nooh Khan. I will be able to see the body today (May 30) once the paperwork and legal procedures are finished.
“I am humbled by ROP, PACDA and the rescue teams who have taken the search this far in recovering the bodies of my family members. I am hopeful that soon the last body of my two-year-old son, Zaid Khan, will be recovered soon.”
A PACDA spokesman said: “A fifth body of the Indian expat family has been found in a wadi in Al Saleel Natural Reserve of South Sharqiyah on Wednesday.
“Search operations will continue until we find the last missing member of the family. It’s our duty and we will do so. We are now combing wadis and areas nearby in Kamil Wa Al Wafi, more than 60km away from where the incident happened.
“We have been searching for them since May 18 with the help of residents in Wadi Bani Khalid. Five bodies have been recovered so far, and the search is on for the remaining one,” confirmed the PACDA official.
Two-year-old Zaid Khan and his new-born brother Nooh went missing along with four other family members in the flooded waters of Wadi Bani Khalid nearly two weeks ago.
Their father, Sardar Fazal Ahmed, an Indian expatriate who works as a pharmacist in Ibra, lost his entire family in the tragedy.
The four bodies recovered from a flooded wadi recently were of two adult women, a man and a child.
Sardar identified the bodies to be of his parents – Khan Khairullah Sattar and Shabana Begum, his wife Arshi Khan, and his four-year-old daughter, Sidra Khan.
PACDA search and rescue teams teamed up with Royal Oman Police officers who deployed sniffer dogs in other areas that had been affected by flooding in Oman.
Several teams of volunteers from the surrounding areas have also signed up to assist the emergency services.
Night vision goggles have been pressed into service so that the teams can continue to work through the night.