School principal saves more than 900 students from Nepal floods

Rajendra Dawadi had only minutes to decide whether to evacuate Tribhuvan Trishuli Secondary School in Nuwakot, Nepal. After receiving four phone calls warning that floodwaters were coming, the principal ordered more than 900 students toward higher ground.

He also told buses carrying students to the school to turn back. The decision came after a parent arrived with an urgent warning: “There is a huge flood coming. I am here to pick up my daughter, I am taking her with me.”

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There is a huge flood coming. I am here to pick up my daughter, I am taking her with me.

Dawadi said the parent’s arrival made clear that he could not lose any time. “Parents do not rush off without a good reason, so it was clear that I could not waste a single second evacuating the children,” he told the BBC.

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Parents do not rush off without a good reason, so it was clear that I could not waste a single second evacuating the children.

The school was later buried under mud and rubble. Dawadi said the evacuation happened just in time: “If we had not made a quick decision, if it had happened 10 minutes later, none of us, neither the students nor me, would be able to talk to you today.”

The floods followed the collapse of a glacier, which unleashed a tsunami-like wall of rocks, ice and mud across a border area between Nepal and Tibet. Entire villages were swept away, along with hundreds of people. Nearly 800 people died, while more than 3,000 remained missing.

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If we had not made a quick decision, if it had happened 10 minutes later, none of us, neither the students nor me, would be able to talk to you today.