Bidur, Nepal, August 31: A quick decision by the principal of Tribhuvan Trishuli Secondary School in Nepal’s Nuwakot district helped save nearly 1,600 students and staff when flash floods struck the area on August 26, washing away the entire school campus.
Principal Rajendra Dawadi said he was attending a class when he received information about the approaching floodwaters. Within minutes, teachers gathered and decided to evacuate the school.“We rang the school bell to alert everyone,” Dawadi told media.
Around 900 students were present on the school premises at the time. School authorities also stopped buses from approaching the campus as the flood situation worsened.
Dawadi said one school bus had crossed a newly constructed bridge when the old bridge collapsed.“We all climbed uphill, and when we looked back, we saw the whole school was washed away,” he said.
One of the school’s teachers, Santosh Parihar, remains missing following the disaster.
Dawadi said rebuilding the school at a safer location is now a priority. “Education is very important, and we need to re-establish the school at a safe site. We will need the help of donations,” he said.
The disaster has left Nepal dealing with a large number of casualties and missing persons. The death toll has risen to 903, while around 4,247 people remain missing, according to Nepal’s National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Authority (NDRRMA). A total of 10,451 people have been rescued.
In Bidur, families of missing persons have been visiting help centres to check lists of missing and deceased people and seek information about their relatives.
Meanwhile, authorities have started burying unidentified bodies recovered from the Trishuli and Narayani riverbanks in a forest area of Chitwan after collecting DNA samples. An official at the site said the process was being carried out in accordance with International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) protocols, with each body assigned a unique identification code.