A head teacher in Nepal almost certainly saved the lives of more than 1,600 pupils with his quick actions as flash floods approached this week. Rajendra Dawadi, principal of Tribhuvan Trishuli Secondary School in Nuwakot, received warnings from people upstream while working on Wednesday morning.
At the time, around 900 students were on the early shift at the school, with 700 more making their way towards the building on foot or by bus. One call came from a parent who said the water 'was rising fast', according to the Times.
Quick decision to evacuate
Unsure if the floodwater would come in the school's direction, Dawadi rang the school bell and got the children out of their classrooms to higher ground. He told the BBC: 'I decided I shouldn't delay any more. Even if the flood was not coming, it was just a matter of a single day's classes.'
Dawadi, 47, added: 'If we had made the decision ten minutes later, all of us, including the students and me, would not be able to speak to you today.' The students were motivated up the hill by the sight of the school janitor being swept away after he returned to lock some doors. A hostel building 100 metres from the river's banks was also swallowed up as they made their way to safety.
Warnings for those still arriving
While the children in the school were safe, Dawadi also knew those on their way in needed to be warned. He was able to get through to the drivers of all the school buses, each carrying 80 passengers, except one, which he later saw making its way across the bridge towards the school. He told the Times: 'By now, the water was in the school grounds — it was so fast — so I told him to turn around. It got to the other side just as the bridge collapsed.'
Yunisha, a 16-year-old student, said in a BBC interview: 'I, along with my friends, survived by just 10 seconds.'
Wider impact of the disaster
Meanwhile, a 97-year-old woman was rescued from the rubble of her care home after it was destroyed in the flood. Her great-nephew, Dipak Bohara, said she 'smiled as if she was a warrior that had returned after being victorious in a war' as she was carried away in the bucket of an excavator.
More than 30 British nationals are still missing after the flash flooding. In its latest update, the Nepalese police said 794 people had been killed and 2,502 remain missing. The flood is thought to have been caused when a huge chunk of ice and rock collapsed from a glacier, an event that registered a magnitude of 5.2 on its own according to the US Geological Survey.
