“He said the village was gone: taken by the river. He told me to run.”
The warning came at 9:20 am on Wednesday from a friend to Rajendra Dawadi, principal of Tribhuvan Trishuli Secondary School in Nepal’s Trishuli Valley. He had 1,643 children in and around the three-storey school as a devastating flash flood, triggered by a glacier collapse, tore through mountain river systems, killing 734 people in Nepal and 16 in Tibet.
Buildings, bridges and power stations were swept away as torrents of rock, ice, mud and debris surged through the region. About 2,498 people remain missing in Nepal, while another 546 are missing in Tibet’s Gyirong County, according to the latest figures.
With the floodwaters rising rapidly, Dawadi, a 47-year-old English teacher, had just minutes to act. He was responsible for the children at the school in flood-hit Nuwakot that morning, and their safety now depended on his decision.
Dawadi initially thought the school was safe. Built of concrete and about 60 metres above the river, it stood on the same level as the steel bridge linking the village to the eastern bank, The Times reported.
A view of the Tribhuvan Trishuli Secondary School in Trishuli, Nuwakot. (Photo credits: https://tthss.edu.np/teachers/)
Then a parent rushed in with a more alarming message: the water was rising fast.
Dawadi rang the school bell and ordered teachers to evacuate the classrooms. He called the school bus drivers, telling all but one to turn back. Then he saw the bus he could no
Read More