“Life Before Lessons”: Nepalese Principal’s Decision Saves About 900 Students

Rajendra Dawadi chose to cancel lessons rather than risk waiting for certainty as flood warnings reached his school in Nepal’s Nuwakot district.

The principal of Tribhuvan Trishuli Secondary School said he received four warning calls from different people within only a few minutes. He also learned that the upstream village of Betravati had already been swept by flash floods.

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I thought we should not delay any longer. Even if the flood did not come, we would only lose one day of classes.

Dawadi immediately moved about 900 students to higher ground. The school has slightly more than 1,600 students in total. As he led the evacuation, he saw floodwater submerge a dormitory building about 100 meters from the river.

“If the flood did not come, we would only lose one day of classes,” Dawadi told the BBC. He said delaying the decision by just 10 minutes could have meant that the students and staff would not have survived to speak about it.

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If the decision had been delayed by just 10 minutes, none of us, including the students and me, would have been able to give this interview today.