The school bell that morning was not a call to class. It was a warning to run. Within minutes, 1,643 children at Tribhuvan Trishuli Secondary School in Nepal’s Nuwakot district were being moved towards
higher ground as a devastating flash flood tore through the valley.
By the time the waters surged through the area, the three-storey school building was gone.
At the centre of the dramatic evacuation was principal Rajendra Dawadi, a 47-year-old English teacher who had only minutes to decide whether the school was safe.
'He told me to run'
Dawadi initially believed the school was protected. The concrete building stood around 60 metres above the river and was roughly level with a steel bridge connecting the village to the eastern bank.
Then, at around 9.20 am on Wednesday, a friend called with a terrifying warning.
“He said the village was gone: taken by the river. He told me to run,” Dawadi said, according to The Times, which reported his account.
Soon after, a parent arrived at the school and warned that the water was rising rapidly. Dawadi immediately rang the bell and instructed teachers to evacuate the classrooms. He also contacted the school bus drivers and told them to turn back.
One bus, however, had already begun crossing the bridge.
The children were now aware that something was seriously wrong. One girl suffered a panic attack and was taken uphill on a motorcycle. Others ran on foot, with Dawadi following behind to ensure they reached safer ground.
The children eventually took shelter beneath a bodhi tree. Then the floodwaters arrived.
School destroyed, two staff killed
The force of the flood swept away buildings, bridges and huge quantities of rock, mud and debris. The school was among the structures destroyed.
The evacuation saved all 1,643 children, but two school staff members died.
Social history teacher Santos Pariyar, 32, returned to his rented room near the river to prepare breakfast and was swept away. Janitor Sultan Lama also died after going back to close the school's doors.
Several students and staff who fled towards the hills were later stranded after roads and bridges were destroyed. Despite being praised by locals as a hero, Dawadi has remained remarkably understated about his actions.
“What else could I do?” he said while surveying the muddy ruins of the school.
How the Nepal flash flood was triggered
The disaster was linked to a massive collapse of ice and rock from the Langtang Lirung area near the Tibet border. The debris plunged into the Lhende Khola river, triggering a sudden torrent of water, mud, rocks and ice downstream.
Geomorphologist Daniel Shugar of the University of Calgary estimated the collapsed mass covered nearly 50 acres, roughly the size of London’s Green Park.
Nepal’s latest figures put the death toll at 734, with 2,498 people still missing. In Tibet, 16 people have died and 546 remain missing. For the children of Tribhuvan Trishuli Secondary School, the river destroyed almost everything around them.
But thanks to one warning — and a principal who acted on it — the children escaped before the flood arrived.
