Rajendra Dawadi was inside his school near Nepal’s Trishuli River with around 900 students last week when a colleague delivered an urgent warning.
asserted
colleague → deliver → warning
“My accountant came to the school and said, ‘The flood is coming, the flood is coming’,” the school principal told AFP in a recent interview.
asserted
principal → come → interview
Dawadi quickly ordered an evacuation, and teachers hurried hundreds of students from classrooms to higher ground.
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teachers → order → ground
Minutes later, the 47-year-old watched the Trishuli Bazaar Secondary School he had run for years collapse into a raging torrent.
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he → watch → torrent
“If the information was wrong, we would lose a day of schooling,” he recalled of the morning of August 26.
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he → lose → August
“But if it was true, we were going to lose our lives.”
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we → go → lives
Students were panicked, Dawadi said, and one girl fainted.
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girl → panic → ?
Bus drivers bringing in other students were asked to turn back, including one driver who had just entered school grounds.
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who → bring → grounds
But the timely evacuation saved some 900 lives.
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evacuation → save → lives
Now, standing above the scarred banks of the river in Nuwakot district more than a week after the disaster, Dawadi described himself simply as “a principal without a school”.
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Dawadi → stand → school
The tsunami-like wall of water, ice and debris unleashed by a massive glacial and rock collapse along the Nepal-China border killed at least 1,362 people and has left more than 5,500 missing across the two countries.
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wall → unleash → countries
Five students died in the flooding outside the school, as well as a teacher and a security staff member, Dawadi said.
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Dawadi → die → school
The staff member, who left the school after him, “had probably wanted to close the gate”, he said.
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he → leave → gate
‘Nothing left’
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Nothing → leave → ?
Authorities in Trishuli Bazaar had not provided an evacuation plan, Dawadi said.
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Dawadi → provide → plan
Some residents tried to cross the bridge but were swept away.
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residents → try → bridge
The others took refuge on higher ground.
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others → take → ground
“When I looked back, the school was standing there like the finest of buildings, and in five minutes, everything collapsed,” Dawadi recalled.
“It’s also the school where I studied.
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I → look → minutes
Santoshi Dotel, 17, was in accounting class when the evacuation order came.
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order → come → class
At first, she struggled to comprehend the danger.
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she → struggle → danger
“We never would have thought the flood could reach such a scale,” she said.
uncertain
she → think → scale
She initially went down to the river with her friend to try to cross and reach her family home.
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She → go → home
Then the water surged.
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water → surge → ?
“The bridge was swept away,” she said.
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she → sweep → ?
“I started to cry because I thought I would never get home and that there was nothing we could do.”
uncertain
we → start → ?
Her friend pulled her up a hillside as the flood roared below.
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flood → pull → hillside
Twisting her phone in her hands, Santoshi broke down into tears as she recalled the anguish of not knowing for hours whether her parents had survived.
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parents → twist → hours
It was only four days later that a helicopter finally reunited her with her family.
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helicopter → reunite → family
“I found my mother as I stepped out of the helicopter,” she said.
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she → find → helicopter
“She hugged me and started to cry.
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She → hug → me
My mind just stopped working.”
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mind → stop → ?
Her mother, Durga Dotel, had feared the worst.
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mother → fear → worst
“Seeing the river in flood, I had lost all hope that my daughter had survived,” she said.
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she → see → hope
According to figures cited by Save the Children, at least 69 schools were destroyed or damaged, disrupting the education of nearly 19,000 children.
uncertain
schools → accord → children
Dawadi said the disaster was “far worse” than the earthquake that hit Nepal in 2015.
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that → say → 2015
“The school had been completely destroyed (after the earthquake), but we rebuilt it,” he said.
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he → destroy → it
“This time, we’ve lost the land and the building.
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we → lose → land
We need a school again.
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We → need → school
But first, we need somewhere safe to build it.”
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we → need → it
The Aporia
