KATHMANDU: In a miraculous display of quick thinking amidst a devastating natural disaster, Rajendra Dawadi, a 47-year-old school principal and English teacher in Nepal, successfully evacuated 1,643 students to safety just minutes before a monster flash flood destroyed their school grounds. The catastrophic flood, triggered by a massive glacier collapse near the Langtang Lirung peak on the Nepal-Tibet border, sent a wall of icy water, mud, and mountain debris surging down the Trishuli Valley, claiming hundreds of lives across the region.
The crisis began around 9:20 AM on Wednesday when Dawadi, head of the Tribhuvan Trishuli Secondary School in Nuwakot district, received a frantic phone call from a friend warning him that a nearby upstream village had just been swallowed by the river. Although the three-storey concrete school building stood roughly 60 meters above the normal river level, a parent rushed into the courtyard moments later to alert staff that the water was rising at an unprecedented speed. Recognizing the immediate danger, Dawadi continuously rang the emergency school bell, ordering teachers to clear all classrooms instantly and contacting school bus drivers to abort incoming routes and turn around.
With chaos unfolding around them, the children, teachers, and staff abandoned the premises on foot, scrambling up nearby hillsides toward higher ground as Dawadi followed closely behind to ensure no student was left behind. The entire student body of 1,643 children ultimately found shelter under a bodhi tree high on the hillside, watching in horror as the torrent of water swept through the valley, completely washing away their school buildings and connecting infrastructure.
While Dawadi’s decisive intervention ensured that every single student survived without a casualty, the tragedy still left the school community grieving. Two school employees—social history teacher Santos Pariyar and janitor Sultan Lama—tragically lost their lives after returning to riverside quarters and school doors shortly before the water hit. Amid widespread devastation and ongoing search operations across Nepal, Dawadi has been widely praised as a local hero, though he humbly downplayed his actions, stating he simply did what any educator would do to protect their students.
