A Principal's Quick Actions Saved the Lives of 900 Students Before Flooding Swept Away Their School

Rajendra Dawadi stood on a hillside and watched the school where he once studied and later taught vanish under a rush of water, mud and boulders. The three-story building had held classes since early morning on August 26 when warnings reached him in quick succession. An accountant burst into his classroom with news that floodwaters were tearing through the Trishuli Valley. A teacher took a phone call with another alert. Then a parent arrived at the gate to collect her child. Dawadi rang the school bell and told everyone to head for higher ground. He also phoned the bus drivers who were already on their way and ordered them to turn back. One loaded bus had just crossed the new bridge over the river when the old bridge beside it collapsed moments later. At least 900 of the 1,643 students on the rolls were on campus that day. From the hillside Dawadi saw the school disappear. Two staff members did not make it out and remain missing. The flood had been triggered by a glacial collapse in the Himalayas and went on to kill more than 950 people across Nepal and Tibet. Days later parents met Dawadi at the ruined site and embraced him. They cried as they thanked him for getting their children out in time. Student Suvina Tamang, 14, said the building was swept away shortly after the evacuation and that she would thank him when she saw him. Dawadi said he felt no words for the loss because the school had given him his education and he had given education there in return. He does not call his actions heroic and says he was only doing what his role required. He now wants counseling for the students and temporary classrooms so lessons can resume. His request to officials is straightforward: rebuild the schools so children can return to class. Across northern Nepal at least 69 schools were destroyed in the same floods, leaving nearly 19,000 students without buildings.