Nepal headteacher saves 900 students minutes before deadly flash flood

A school headteacher in Nepal evacuated 900 children just moments before a devastating wall of water swept through their town, amid flash floods that have killed nearly 800 people and left thousands missing, the Guardian reports.

Rajendra Dawadi called off classes and instructed students to move to higher ground after receiving several warnings about the scale of the flood approaching the area.

Dawadi, headteacher of Tribhuvan Trishuli Secondary School in Nuwakot, which has 1,600 students, said he received four warnings from different people within minutes, including one from Betrawati, a town located directly upstream.

The warnings prompted him to act immediately. “I decided I shouldn’t delay any more,” he told the BBC.

“Even if the flood was not coming, it was just a matter of a single day’s classes.”

During the evacuation, Dawadi said he saw a hostel building around 100 metres from the river being swallowed by the torrent.

“If we had made the decision 10 minutes later, all of us, including the students and me, would not be able to speak to you today,” he said.

One student said Dawadi’s decision had saved their lives with only seconds to spare. Yunisha, 16, told reporters: “I, along with my friends, survived by just 10 seconds.”

She recalled children rushing along a muddy path to safety as floodwater and debris swept through the town.

“Within no time, the bazaar was swept away in front of my eyes,” she said.

Yunisha was reunited with her family three days later.

According to the charity Save the Children, at least 69 schools have been destroyed or damaged in the floods, affecting nearly 19,000 children.

In Dhading, among the areas hardest hit by the disaster, a group of schoolchildren survived after leaving their classroom for their lunch break.

Others in the area escaped after teachers instructed them to leave their classrooms immediately, just before floodwaters surged into the area.

The mother of one child told the Associated Press that teachers had warned students: “There is a flood and you should leave bags and tiffins. That’s how they managed to survive.”

More than 3,700 people have so far been rescued in Nepal. On Sunday, the country reported that 2,502 people, including 592 foreigners, remained out of contact. The updated death toll stood at 781.

The disaster struck the Nepal-Tibet border region of the Himalayas on Wednesday morning.

The US Geological Survey said it was caused by a glacial collapse that sent a huge volume of water and debris cascading downstream.

Nepal’s foreign minister has urged the international community to respond to the climate crisis, saying the Nepali people have disproportionately become “major victims of climate change” despite contributing only a fraction of global fossil fuel emissions.