Headmaster rang the bell as flood waters approached, saving 1,643 lives

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Headmaster rang the bell as flood waters approached, saving 1,643 lives
1,643 children were saved by the presence of mind of Dawadi, the headmaster of Tribhuvan Trishuli Secondary School. 

When the school was warned that floodwaters were approaching, headmaster Rajendra Dawadi did not hesitate for a moment. He rang the bell and quickly evacuated the teachers and students from the school. His quick decision saved the lives of 1,643 children.

At 9:20 am on Wednesday (August 26), Dawati, the headmaster of Tribhuvan Trishuli Secondary School in the Trishuli Valley of Nepal, received a call from a friend. He was informed that a dangerous current was flowing down the mountain river and the situation in the village was rapidly deteriorating.

The friend told him, 'The village is no more, the river has washed everything away. He told me to run.'

At that time, there were 1,643 students in and around the three-story school building. The flash floods caused by the glacier landslide have already turned dangerous in the mountain rivers.

Dawadi, a 47-year-old English teacher, initially thought the school was safe. The concrete building was about 60 meters above the river. Even the steel bridge connecting the village to the east bank of the river was at the same height as the school.

But a parent of a student rushed in and said that the water was rising very quickly.

Dawadi immediately rang the school bell and ordered the teachers to vacate the classrooms. He called the school bus drivers to turn the bus around. However, he could not contact one of the drivers. After a while, he saw with his own eyes that the bus was crossing the bridge.

By now, the students realized they were in great danger. When one student became ill from the panic, she was taken to higher ground on a motorcycle. The others ran to safety. Daoudi was also running after them.

Finally, the students took shelter under a Bodhi tree. At that time, the fierce current swept away their school building and surrounding structures. Due to the quick decision of the Dawadi, almost all of the 1,643 students and teachers and staff survived.

However, the school's social studies teacher, Santosh Pariyar, 32, did not survive. He was swept away by the current while returning to cook breakfast at his rented house near the river. The school's cleaner, Sultan Lama, also lost his life while returning to close the door.

Local residents see Dawadi as a hero, but he doesn't consider himself a hero.

"What else could I have done?" Daouadi said, looking at the muddy ruins of the destroyed school.A terrible disaster began with a glacier collapse

It is believed that a large section of ice and rock from the Langtang Lirung mountain range near the Tibetan border collapsed into the steep gorge of the Lende Khola River, some 1,200 meters below, causing severe flash flooding.

According to estimates by Daniel Sugar, a geographer at the University of Calgary in Canada, the area of ​​the collapsed ice-rock was about 50 acres, which is about the size of London's Green Park.

The region has seen devastating disasters before. A 7.8-magnitude earthquake in 2015 killed 8,962 people in South Asia. About 300 residents of the flooded Langtang area of ​​Rasua district were buried by avalanches triggered by the quake.

The recent floods have killed 734 people in Nepal so far. About 2,498 people are still missing in the country. Another 546 people are also missing in Gyerong County in Tibet.

Source: India Today