A Race Against the Flood
Rajendra Dawadi, the headteacher of Tribhuvan Trishuli Secondary School in Nuwakot, made a split-second decision that he says saved the lives of 900 students. As flash floods devastated parts of Nepal on Wednesday, Dawadi evacuated the children just 10 minutes before the waters hit the school, he told the BBC.
"If we didn't make a quick decision, if it was 10 minutes later, we all - including the students and me - wouldn't be able to speak to you today," Dawadi said.
Dawadi said he received four warnings at 09:10 local time (03:25 GMT) from different people within minutes, including one from Betrawati, a town directly upstream. Among the warnings was a parent who came to the school, telling him: "A big flood was coming, I am here to take my daughter, I will take her."
"Parents don't rush without a strong reason, so it was confirmed that I shouldn't waste a second to evacuate the children," he added. "I decided I shouldn't delay any more. Even if the flood was not coming, it was just a matter of a single day's classes."
The school, which has 1,600 pupils, was later buried under mud and debris. During the evacuation, Dawadi saw a hostel building about 100 metres from the river being engulfed by the torrent of flood water. He told the BBC: "Had I decided to close the school after the period, nothing might be left, only the bell would be ringing at 9:30."
Students' Harrowing Escape
For the students, the escape was moments of sheer terror. Yunisha Amatya, 16, told the BBC she scrambled to safety with her friends just before the flood hit. "I along with my friends survived by just 10 seconds only," she said.
Initially, many students did not realise how serious the situation was. "Just before the flood came, we were in the class studying. Teachers had gathered in one place and initially had no idea what had happened. After five minutes teachers came and informed us about the flood and asked us to go home," Yunisha recounted.
Some initially underestimated the danger and waited for classmates who were in a maths lesson. One student fainted after hearing about the disaster. Yunisha and her friends scrambled uphill through an escape route behind the school, using a narrow ladder. "I could not walk fast, and my friends helped me to climb uphill. We tried our best to be in the safer zones then. We escaped through a narrow ladder from backside of the school. Within no time, the bazaar was swept away in front of my eyes," she said, referring to the local market around the school.
"If there was no grip in my shoes I would have fallen and students and other people were jostling each other to reach the safer area while escaping. The people who choose to escape from another route are apparently swept away," she added.
Students and teachers initially moved a few hundred metres uphill to safety before making their way to a neighbouring village. With roads cut off and transport disrupted, many remained stranded for two nights before rescue efforts reached them. The principal and Yunisha, who both live across the river from the school, were eventually airlifted back to their home village.
Parents' Desperate Search
While the children fled, parents were desperately trying to contact them. Yunisha's mother, Sabina Kumari Shrestha, said she repeatedly tried to call both her daughter and husband, but neither could be reached. Her husband, Yubaraj Amatya, immediately headed towards the school.
"Soon after the flood news spread, I tried my daughter's number, but she was not reachable, then I was afraid," he said. "Within a few minutes I rushed toward my daughter's school and Trishuli Bazar was all swept by the flood, then I thought my daughter was no more."
For nearly an hour, he had no idea whether she was alive and kept calling her without success. Then the phone finally connected and Yunisha answered. Yunisha appeared tearful as she recalled receiving the call from her father after reaching the top of the hill. She was reunited with her family three days later; her mother said her younger daughter couldn't sleep, but she felt good to see Yunisha after three days.
Wider Impact and Response
The floods, which struck the Nepal-Tibet border region of the Himalayas on Wednesday morning, have killed at least 794 people, according to the BBC, with at least 2,426 people missing. The Guardian reported an updated death toll of 781 people and said 2,502 people, including 592 foreigners, were out of contact as of Sunday. More than 3,700 people have been rescued so far.
The disaster was caused by a glacial collapse that sent a wall of water and debris cascading downstream, the US Geological Survey said.
At least 69 schools have been destroyed or damaged by the floods, affecting nearly 19,000 children, according to the charity Save the Children. In Dhading, one of the areas worst hit, a group of schoolchildren survived the disaster when they left their classroom for their lunch break. Others in the area escaped when teachers told them to quickly evacuate classrooms just before the waters came crashing in. The mother of one child told the Associated Press that teachers had warned students: "There is a flood and you should leave your bags and tiffins. That's how they managed to survive."
Calls for Better Warning Systems and Global Action
Dawadi believes better warning systems, including sirens and evacuation alerts, could have helped residents respond sooner. "I am happy that we took the decision at that moment," he said, adding there was no time to gather the students in one place, so they were told to flee from wherever they were.
Nepal's foreign minister has called for a global response to the climate crisis, saying the Nepali people had disproportionately become "major victims of climate change" despite having contributed a fraction of the planet's fossil fuel emissions, as reported by The Guardian.