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🇵🇦 Panama /Disasters & Emergencies

‘There was nothing left’: The Nepalese principal who saved 900 students from a landslide

From TVN Panamá · () Spanish

Translated from Spanish and summarized by DistantNews. Read the original for the full story.

At a glance

In-depth Named sources Outcome reported
  • Principal Rajendra Dawadi evacuated 900 students from a school in northern Nepal minutes before a devastating landslide destroyed the building.
  • The disaster killed more than 1,300 people and left about 5,000 missing, according to the latest official toll cited in the article.
  • At least 69 schools were destroyed, affecting the education of nearly 19,000 children, Save the Children said.

Rajendra Dawadi had only minutes to decide whether the warning was real. At 9 a.m., his accountant burst into the school shouting, “The flood is coming, the flood is coming, all the villages are flooded!” A colleague then warned him about a huge wave forming upstream on the Trishuli River.

Dawadi, the 47-year-old principal of a school in Trishuli Bazar, northern Nepal, ordered all 900 students present to “take shelter in a safe place.” Panic spread through the school, and one student fainted. Buses heading toward the building turned around after receiving the evacuation order.

I am a principal without a school.

· Rajendra DawadiThe principal described the loss of the school after the landslide destroyed it.

The decision saved the students inside the school, but the disaster still claimed lives among those connected to it. Five students died outside the school, along with a teacher and a security guard. Dawadi believes the guard “surely wanted to close the door” before the flood reached the building.

The flood is coming, the flood is coming, all the villages are flooded!

· Rajendra Dawadi’s accountantThe warning that prompted the evacuation of the students.

From a hill, Dawadi watched the school disappear. He had studied there as a child. “In five minutes, everything collapsed. There was nothing left,” he said. The latest official figures cited in the report put the disaster’s toll at more than 1,300 dead and around 5,000 missing across Nepal.

Seventeen-year-old Santoshi Dotel was in an accounting class when the evacuation began. She and a friend tried to approach the river to cross it and return home, but a sudden wave forced them back. “I started crying because I thought I would never get home and that there was nothing we could do,” she recalled. A school caretaker urged her onward, and her friend helped her reach higher ground. Dotel was later evacuated by helicopter and reunited with her parents four days later. Her mother, Durga, said she had lost hope after seeing the overflowing river.

In five minutes, everything collapsed. There was nothing left.

· Rajendra DawadiHe described watching the school disappear from a nearby hill.

Dawadi is pressing authorities to reopen the school quickly. He called the catastrophe worse than the 2015 earthquake because the earthquake destroyed the building but left the land available for reconstruction. This time, he said, “we have lost both the land and the school.” Save the Children said at least 69 schools were destroyed, putting the education of nearly 19,000 children at risk.

I started crying because I thought I would never get home and that there was nothing we could do.

· Santoshi DotelThe student recalled being trapped by the rising water after leaving school.
About this summary

Originally published by TVN Panamá in Spanish. Translated, summarized, and contextualized automatically by DistantNews, with a note on how the source frames the story. Not individually reviewed before publishing. How this works.

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