How a Nepali teacher's swift thinking saved 1,643 children with heroic rescue
PTC News Desk: A warning reached Rajendra Dawadi, principal of Tribhuvan Trishuli Secondary School in Nepal’s Trishuli Valley, at around 9:20 am on Wednesday. At the time, he was responsible for the safety of 1,643 students and staff inside and around the three-storey school as a devastating flash flood moved through the mountain region.
The flood, reportedly triggered by a glacier collapse, swept through river systems across the area, killing more than 750 people in Nepal and 16 in Tibet. Roads, bridges, buildings and power stations were destroyed by the massive flow of water, rocks, ice, mud and debris.
According to the latest figures, around 2,498 people are still missing in Nepal, while another 546 people remain unaccounted for in Tibet’s Gyirong County.
Principal had only minutes to act
As the water level began rising quickly, Dawadi, a 47-year-old English teacher, had only a few minutes to decide what to do. He was in charge of the children at the school in flood-hit Nuwakot.
At first, Dawadi believed the school was safe. The concrete building stood around 60 metres above the river, at roughly the same level as a steel bridge connecting the village to the eastern bank, according to The Times.
‘What else could I do?’
Local residents have praised Dawadi for helping save the children, calling him a hero. However, he does not see himself that way.
“What else could I do?” he said while looking at the muddy remains of the school building.
The flash flood was caused by a huge mass of ice and rock breaking away from Langtang Lirung peak. The material reportedly fell around 1,200 metres into the steep upper section of the Lhende Khola river near the Tibet border.
Daniel Shugar, a geomorphologist at the University of Calgary, estimated that the collapsed mass covered nearly 50 acres, an area roughly the size of Green Park in London.
Region has faced disasters before
The area has experienced major disasters in the past. In April 2015, a magnitude 7.8 earthquake killed 8,962 people across South Asia.
The earthquake also triggered an avalanche that buried all 300 residents of Langtang, a settlement in Rasuwa district, which has once again been badly affected by the recent floods.
- With inputs from agencies
