Last-minute flood warning saved over 900 Nepal students

Headmaster Rajendra Dawadi was at his school in Nepal's Bidur last Wednesday when his accountant entered, shouting: "The flood is coming, the flood is coming!", giving an early warning that helped save the lives of 900 students and 16 faculty members.



As teachers at the Tribhuvan Trishuli Secondary School began receiving panicked phone calls from relatives and friends, a roaring wave of mud water was already making its way through the valley upstream, flattening entire towns.



The accountant had received a call from a relative in Rasuwa, which was hit first, giving just 14 minutes to evacuate in a decision that saved the students' and teachers' lives - a rare glimmer of hope in a natural disaster that has killed over 900 people, with thousands missing.



Rebuilt in the wake of Nepal's devastating 2015 earthquake that killed around 9,000 people, the school stood on a peninsula of sorts, squeezed in between the Trishuli River and a hydropower canal.



The school no longer exists, and its former location sits inside the riverbed.