Some heroes do not put on capes, they ring college bells. As catastrophic flash floods tore via Nepal, one college principal’s fast pondering meant that not a single one among his 900 college students misplaced their lives. Rajendra Dawadi has now spoken to NDTV concerning the morning he evacuated his complete college in minutes.
Dawadi, 47, is the principal and an English instructor at Tribhuvan Trishuli Secondary School within the Trishuli Valley. Chatting with NDTV, he recalled how the day began like another. “It was a standard day. Courses began at 6.30, and I used to be there,” he mentioned.
At round 9.10 am, whereas he was instructing a category, a workers member rushed into the room with an pressing warning. “At ten previous 9, one among my accountants shouted and mentioned, ‘The flood is coming, the whole lot is flooding,'” Dawadi mentioned.
Dawadi initially went to verify issues out himself. “I used to be contained in the classroom, and I got here into the basement,” he mentioned. Moments later, a colleague confirmed his worst fears. “Then one among my colleagues got here close to me and mentioned, ‘Sir, the flood is coming, and the entire village is swept upwards,'” he recalled. That colleague then rode off on a motorcycle to warn others.
#IndiaMatters with @ShivAroor | Nepal Instructor Obtained Flood Warning. What He Did Subsequent Saved 1,643 Youngstershttps://t.co/bEgubPsYIQ
NDTV’s @manogyaloiwal speaks to Rajendra Dawadi, the instructor who helped save the lives of the scholars pic.twitter.com/46Eazi4o1w
— NDTV (@ndtv) August 31, 2026
Across the identical time, extra warnings began coming in from colleagues and a faculty guard, who instructed Dawadi he wished to take his personal baby to security.
With round 900 of the college’s 1,643 college students current that morning, principally older college students aged 11 to 18, Dawadi had solely seconds to resolve what to do. “I instantly thought of it, and a few of my colleagues got here to me, and we determined to evacuate. If the data turned out to be incorrect, we’d solely lose a single day’s schooling. If it was proper, we’d be risking folks’s lives,” he mentioned.
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He selected to behave. “We instantly despatched the kids to a secure place. If your own home is secure, go residence. But when your own home is close to the riverbank, go uphill as an alternative,” he mentioned.
Dawadi rang the college bell and instructed academics to get the kids out of their school rooms right away. He additionally tried calling the college bus drivers to show them again, although one bus he couldn’t attain had already crossed the bridge over the river.
Quite than working with the kids himself, Dawadi stayed again to coordinate. “I first directed them, my colleagues ran with them, and I stayed again within the school rooms. I ordered my colleagues, the gatekeeper and the safety guard to blow their whistles, they usually did, sending the kids on their method. Some kids have been panicking,” he mentioned.
“They have been very scared, they have been very panicked, they have been crying, and a few requested, ‘The place are my mother and father, the place are they?'” he mentioned.
The kids ran uphill to security, with one woman taken up on a motorcycle after struggling a panic assault. The remainder of the pupils ultimately sheltered below a bodhi tree as Dawadi adopted behind them.
Quickly after, the floodwaters tore via the world, sweeping away buildings, bridges and different buildings, together with the college itself. Requested what it felt wish to look again and see the college gone, Dawadi mentioned the second overwhelmed him. “I felt plenty of ache. I used to be additionally a pupil of the identical college. I went up with my college students, working and working up the hill, and after I appeared again, nothing was there,” he mentioned.
“Then I sat down, and I grew to become very emotional. I could not do something. I spent most of my life there, about 70 per cent of it,” he added. Dawadi has taught on the college for the previous 23 years, having as soon as been a pupil there himself. “So the whole lot was gone inside 10 minutes,” he mentioned.
Regardless of dropping the constructing, Dawadi mentioned saving the scholars mattered extra. “Sure, there is no constructing, however we saved lives. That is why I’ve come right here to speak to the authorities. We have saved folks’s lives, however we additionally should proceed the schooling. Training is one other vital half,” he mentioned.
Requested whether or not he cried himself, Dawadi mentioned he held again his feelings to maintain the kids calm. “No, I managed my feelings. If I cried, nobody would cease. So I cried elsewhere, watching the whole lot swept away. I stayed there and began crying,” he mentioned. He added that returning to see the college’s ruins the next day left him shaken another time. “And yesterday I went there to see the wreckage of the college. That is after I grew to become very panicked,” he mentioned.
The flash flood was triggered when an enormous quantity of ice and rock broke away from the Langtang Lirung peak close to the Nepal-Tibet border, falling round 1,200 metres into the higher a part of the Lhende Khola river. The ensuing surge killed a whole bunch of individuals throughout Nepal and Tibet, with Nepal reporting over 900 deaths and greater than 4,500 folks nonetheless lacking.
Two members of workers from the college have been amongst these killed. Social historical past instructor Santos Pariyar, 32, was swept away after returning to his rented room close to the river to prepare dinner breakfast, whereas college janitor Sultan Lama died after going again to the college to shut its doorways.
