Principal Rajendra Dawadi's quick decision helped about 900 students have time to escape before the flash flood disaster on August 26.
"My accountant ran over and shouted 'the flood is coming, the flood is coming,'" principal Rajendra Dawadi, 47 years old, said in an interview published today by AFP news agency, referring to the historic flash flood that destroyed many areas on the Nepal-China border on August 26.
The accountant had earlier received a call from relatives in Rasuwa, the first area to be devastated, giving the school's leadership just 14 minutes to react.
Upon receiving the information, principal Rajendra Dawadi immediately issued an evacuation order, urging teachers and hundreds of students to urgently move to higher ground. "If the information is wrong, we will only lose one day of school. But if it is true, we will pay with our lives. So, I immediately said: 'Stop class, ring the alarm immediately,'" he recalled that morning.
Just a few minutes later, he witnessed with his own eyes the Trishuli Bazaar high school that he had been attached to for many years collapsed into the rushing floodwaters.
Trishuli Bazaar School has about 1,600 students, but only about 900 were present at the time of the flash flood.
Mr. Dawadi said that the students were extremely panicked at that time, one female student even fainted from fear. Bus drivers carrying other students on their way to school were also asked to turn around, with one driver just entering the school campus.
The timely evacuation order saved the lives of most students and school staff. Standing on the banks of a ragged river in Nuwakot district more than a week after the disaster, he called himself "a principal without a school".
The torrent of water and mud pouring down like a tsunami after a glacier landslide along the Nepal-China border on August 26 left at least 1,375 people dead and more than 5,500 missing in both countries.
According to principal Dawadi, five students, one teacher and one security guard died because of the flood. The security guard left the school after him, seemingly wanting to close the gate.
Principal Dawadi said the local government had never provided any evacuation plans before the disaster. Some people tried to cross the bridge but were swept away, others took refuge on higher ground.
"When I looked back, the school was still standing there, beautiful and solid, but everything collapsed in just 5 minutes. That's also the place I used to study. There's nothing left," he said.
Santoshi Dotel, a 17-year-old female student, initially did not realize the danger of the disaster when she first received the evacuation order. "We never thought the flood could reach such a scale," she said.
Initially, Dotel and her friend went down to the river, trying to cross the bridge to go home to her family, but then the water began to flow. "The bridge was washed away. I burst into tears because I thought I would never go home again and we were completely helpless," she said.
The friend was able to pull Dotel up the hillside as the flood roared below. The Nepalese schoolgirl burst into tears as she remembered the pain she felt for hours because she didn't know whether her parents were still alive or not.
It took 4 days for a helicopter to bring her back to reunite with her family. "I saw my mother as soon as I stepped off the helicopter. She hugged me and cried. At that moment, my mind was completely blank," Dotel said.
Mrs. Durga Dotel also feared the worst had happened to her daughter. "Seeing the fierce flood waters, I lost all hope that my daughter was still alive," she said.
According to data from Save the Children, the flash flood disaster caused at least 69 schools in Nepal to be destroyed or damaged, disrupting the learning process of nearly 19,000 children.
Principal Dawadi said that the recent flash flood disaster was "much worse" than the earthquake that devastated Nepal in 2015. "The school was completely destroyed after the earthquake that year, but we rebuilt it. This time, we lost both the land and the school. The school needs to be restored, but first there must be a safe place to build," he said.
