When Rajendra Dawadi arrived at school to teach on Wednesday morning, little did he know he would soon be racing to save the lives of 1,643 children as a deadly flash flood tore through Nepal’s Trishuli Valley.
He told me to run,” The Times reported. At first, Dawadi believed the school was out of danger. He also called the school bus drivers and asked all but one to turn back. By then, he spotted the bus he had been unable to contact crossing the bridge. The children eventually took shelter beneath a bodhi tree as the floodwaters swept away their school buildings.
A 47-year-old teacher and principal of Tribhuvan Trishuli Secondary School in Nepal’s Trishuli Valley, received a warning at 9.20 am on Wednesday from a friend: “He said the village was gone: taken by the river. Dawadi, had 1,643 children in and around the three-storey school in flood-hit Nuwakot that morning. The flash flood, triggered by a glacier collapse, tore through mountain river systems, killing over 700 people in Nepal and 16 in Tibet. The three-storey concrete building was around 60 metres above the river and at the same level as the steel bridge connecting the village to the eastern bank, according to the report.
Dawadi sounded the school bell and told the teachers to get the children out of their classrooms.
The school’s janitor, Sultan Lama, was also killed after returning to close the doors, the report further added. Dawadi’s quick thinking saved 1,643 children and all but one member of the teaching staff. Social history teacher Santos Pariyar, 32, was washed away after returning to his rented room beside the river to cook breakfast.
