‘Survived by just 10 seconds’: How teacher’s quick decision saved 900 children

The head teacher of a Nepalese school reportedly evacuated about 900 students to safety just moments before a wall of water, mud and debris tore a swath through entire villages in Nepal and Tibet.

Rajendra Dawadi, who leads the Tribhuvan Trishuli Secondary School in Nuwakot, said he received four warnings about the approaching floodwater from different people just after 9am on Wednesday, the BBC reported. One of the reports was that a community upstream had been washed away.

“I decided I shouldn’t delay any more. Even if the flood was not coming, it was just a matter of a single day’s classes,” he told the BBC.

As they evacuated to higher ground, Dawadi said he saw a building about 100 metres from the river being engulfed.

“If we had made the decision 10 minutes later, all of us, including the students and me, would not be able to speak to you today.”

One student said Dawadi’s decision had saved their lives with moments to spare, The Guardian reported.

Yunisha, 16, said: “I, along with my friends, survived by just 10 seconds.”

At another school in Dhading, a group of schoolchildren managed to survive when they happened to leave their classroom for their lunch break.

Children attending other classes at the school escaped because teachers told them to quickly evacuate their classrooms shortly before the water came crashing in.

“The teachers said, ‘There is a flood, and you should leave bags and tiffins’,” said Lakshmi Shrestha, the mother of a student attending the school. “That’s how they managed to survive.”

Shrestha was among mothers and children who began to return to their school on Sunday to find the kids’ belongings and see what could be salvaged. Most children at the school appeared to have survived the floods, the families said.

Thick brown and grey mud coated the surfaces of school benches, walls and notebooks while the school’s courtyard was filled with sediment. Lines on the walls showed how high the water rapidly rose. A pile of small mud-caked backpacks, some with colourful key chains, were on the benches and floors, waiting to be claimed.

At least 69 schools in Nepal’s flood-devastated districts have been destroyed or damaged, putting education at risk for nearly 19,000 children, according to the non-profit Save the Children. Those numbers were likely to rise as rescue teams reached more areas, they said.

The government ordered schools and universities to shut down for three days following torrential rains that triggered severe flash floods and landslides across parts of the country. University exams were also paused.

With communities still receiving constant flood warnings advising them to move to higher, safer areas, it’s unclear when classes will be able to resume.