Massive pre-dawn flooding on August 7 is believed to have killed nearly 200 people, displaced 900,000 and devastated the economy of Surat, a city in Western India. The floods also caused massive damage to the Seventh-day Adventist Church’s health care facility and campus there, known as the Medical Education Trust, Surat, or METAS. Six intensive care unit patients died after the flood hit at approximately 2:30 a.m. local time.

At least 60 million Indian Rupees (approximately US$1.29 million) in damages to the hospital, college and school campuses was reported. An estimated 23 faculty families who lived on the campus barely escaped, losing their entire possessions in the process. Two other Adventist schools in the outskirts of the city were unaffected by the flooding.

“Right now, our desire is [that] we should rehabilitate ourselves,” Dr. M.S. Jeremiah, METAS president told Adventist News Network in a telephone interview. “Our spirits are okay and we are trying to get back to our normal activities.”

He added, “I need your prayers. I want the spirit of my faculty members to be very great. I’m also in need of some monetary help so I can rehabilitate [these] faculty members’ [homes].”

The flooding came as a surprise to the METAS campus, located less than a mile from the Tapti river. In just a few hours the water rose from the initial 3 feet to a depth of 9 feet. Within a short time it became apparent that people would have to rush to save their own lives and abandon all hope of saving equipment.

More than half the city lost electrical power, including the METAS campus. The hospital, enlarged and renovated two years ago, sustained the largest losses.  On the ground floor were four operating theaters with equipment for neurosurgery and joint replacement, several labs, diagnostic equipment, and the pharmacy with over US$215,000 worth of medicines.  Total damage to the hospital alone is estimated at over US$1 million.  The school and college sustained losses on the ground floor.

One Adventist doctor remained in the hospital and attended to the patients. Drinking water ran out, but residents drank other water stored in tanks on the roof.  Some were forced to drink the floodwater itself, straining it several times through cloths.  Since it was the beginning of the month, most had stocked up on food and survived on that. 

Students in the hostel had some snacks, but older boys ventured out with ropes and managed to transport cooking gas cylinders, bags of rice, and other groceries to the girls’ hostel where food was cooked and passed around.  Younger boys were also transported from the hostel to safer buildings.  However by the third day, food began to run out. As waters receded, donations of food from an Adventist school in the neighboring city of Ahmedabad arrived.

Other losses at the METAS campus included a computer laboratory of 300 machines and two bookstores, one for the K-12 schools and the other for the college, each with approximately US$215,000 in books. An estimated 4,800 students attend the primary and secondary schools, Jeremiah said, and 1,000 attend the college, including 220 nursing students who have been recalled to help staff the hospital, which is expected to open shortly.

Jeremiah said the greatest need was to “rehabilitate the hospital and its function. Surat city is in need of our health system.”