School principal in Nepal saves 900 students from tsunami through rapid evacuation

The decision came promptly: a school principal in Nepal probably saved the lives of around 900 students by immediately evacuating them. He was also able to redirect school buses with hundreds of other children on the way to school in a timely manner. "I found out about the tsunami through calls - about 15 minutes before it actually reached our school," said Rajenda Dawadi, head of the secondary school in the town of Trishuli Baraar, to the dpa news agency. The BBC and the British newspaper Daily Mail initially reported on the rescue.

»I said to myself: If there is no flood, we will lose a day of school. But if there is a flood, we all lose our lives,” said Dawadi.

The 900 children in the school fled on foot and some on a bus. Panic briefly broke out in the school. A student who had fainted was brought to safety on a moped. "If we had made the decision to escape ten minutes later, all of us - including the students and myself - would no longer be able to speak to you today," the BBC quoted the headmaster as saying.

Seconds decide between life and death

One of the rescued students, 16-year-old Yunisha, told the station that they were able to reach safety just seconds before the tidal wave hit. With others she ran uphill along a muddy path behind the school when the place behind her was already destroyed by the masses of water and rubble.

Almost nothing remained of the school building. A teacher and the caretaker, who wanted to quickly close the doors, were killed.

After the tsunami on Wednesday, around 800 dead have been recovered in Nepal and Tibet. More than 3,000 people, including hundreds of foreigners and several Germans, are missing. Entire places were destroyed and the damage ran into billions.

Read here why so little is known about the flash floods in Tibet.