Rajendra Dawadi, a school teacher of Tribhuvan Trishuli Secondary School, talks on his mobile phone in Trishuli Valley in Nepal’s Nuwakot district, Monday, Aug. 31, 2026. (AP Photo\/Rajesh Kumar Singh)<\/small><\/p>\n
2026-08-31T10:49:16Z<\/p>\n
BIDUR, Nepal (AP) \u2014 Rajendra Dawadi was inside his classroom when the school\u2019s accountant rushed in with a warning: Floodwaters were racing through Nepal\u2019s<\/a><\/span> Trishuli Valley, tearing apart homes, bridges and entire villages.<\/p>\n Then a teacher received another warning by phone. Moments later, a parent arrived to take her child home. The danger had not yet been confirmed, but Dawadi had little time to act. He rang the school bell and ordered his students and staff out of the building and toward higher ground.<\/p>\n \u201cI immediately decided to stop … school and (get the children out),\u201d he told The Associated Press.<\/p>\n As he followed them to a nearby hill, the floodwaters rose behind him. From the safety of the hillside, he turned to watch the school where he had once been a student \u2014 and where he had spent years teaching \u2014 disappear beneath a torrent of water, mud, boulders and debris. Two staff members could not make it and remain missing.<\/p>\n Dawadi\u2019s decision to evacuate the school saved at least 900 students from last week\u2019s devastating flash floods in Nepal, unleashed after a glacial collapse<\/a><\/span> in the Himalayas. The disaster killed over 900 people<\/a><\/span> across Nepal and China, while more than 4,700 remain missing.<\/p>\n As Nepal grapples with the catastrophic natural disaster, Dawadi\u2019s story has emerged as a striking example of foresight and courage.<\/p>\n The Tribhuvan Trishuli Secondary School in the Trishuli Valley of north-central Nepal had 1,643 students. At least 900 were on campus that morning, while some students were still making their way to school. Dawadi ordered those already there to leave and called bus drivers, telling them to only stop at safer places.<\/p>\n One bus, packed with students, had already reached the school when Dawadi told the driver to turn back, he said. The bus crossed a newly constructed bridge and, moments later, the old bridge beside it collapsed.<\/p>\n