Around 167 primary students and teachers had a providential escape after a portion of the wall of a 59-year-old Zilla Parishad school in Pale-Boripada in Dahanu was beaten down by the incessant rain on Wednesday night. Fortunately, the school was closed at the time as the students and teachers had gone home for the day.
The Marathi-medium school houses Classes I to VII and is attended by tribal students, whose parents are primarily peasants, working in their paddy fields at this time of the year. According to a social activist from Dahanu, Vinayak Pawar, the wall collapsed around 10pm. Had it occurred in the daytime, it would have been a calamity, as children aged between 7 to 13 years attend the school, Pawar said.
The president of the Zilla Parishad, Palghar, Vaidehi Wadhan, and other officials visited the spot to get first-hand information about the damage. “We have accommodated the students in the three classrooms that escaped damage and the school will operate in two shifts - morning and afternoon - so that their education does not suffer,” said Wadhan.
“We will demolish the entire structure, as the school is nearly 60 years old, and build a new one. We will also pull down another school on the same premises which was built in 2007 as a standby and construct new schools after the monsoon. Until then, the school will operate in two shifts, she said. It was fortunate the incident occurred during the night or it would have been calamitous, she said. Disaster was in the offing as for the last few days, Palghar district has been experiencing torrential rains, Wadhan said.
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