School principal Rajendra Dawadi's quick decision to evacuate his school saved at least 900 students from devastating flash floods in Nepal last week BIDUR, Nepal -- Rajendra Dawadi was inside his classroom when the school's accountant rushed in with a warning: Floodwaters were racing through Nepal’s Trishuli Valley, tearing apart homes, bridges and entire villages. Then a teacher received another warning by phone. Moments later, a parent arrived to take her child home.
The danger had not yet been confirmed, but Dawadi had little time to act. He rang the school bell and ordered his students and staff out of the building and toward higher ground. As he followed them to a nearby hill, the floodwaters rose behind him.
From the safety of the hillside, he turned to watch the school where he had once been a student — and where he had spent years teaching — disappear beneath a torrent of water, mud, boulders and debris. Two staff members could not make it and remain missing. Dawadi’s decision to evacuate the school saved at least 900 students from last week’s devastating flash floods in Nepal, unleashed after a glacial collapse in the Himalayas.
The disaster killed over 900 people across Nepal and China, while more than 4,700 remain missing. As Nepal grapples with the catastrophic natural disaster, Dawadi’s story has emerged as a striking example of foresight and courage. The Tribhuvan Trishuli Secondary School in the Trishuli Valley of north-central Nepal had 1,643 students.
At least 900 were on campus that morning, while some students were still making their way to school. Dawadi ordered those already there to leave and called bus drivers, telling them to only stop at safer places. One bus, packed with students, had already reached the school when Dawadi told the driver to turn back, he said.
The bus crossed a newly constructed bridge and, moments later, the old bridge beside it collapsed. For Dawadi, the scale of the destruction has become personal, as the school had been both his workplace and a large part of his life. I got education from that school.
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