00:01A frantic warning sent headmaster Rajendra Dawadi and his colleagues into a race against
00:06time to evacuate hundreds of students from a school in Nepal's last Wednesday.
00:12The alarm was raised as a powerful surge of muddy floodwater tore through the valley,
00:17destroying everything in its path.
00:23Rebuilt after the devastating 2015 earthquake, Tribhuvan Trishuli Secondary School,
00:29sits between the Trishuli River and a hydropower canal, leaving it dangerously exposed to the approaching flood.
01:13The swift evacuation saved more than 900 students and around 16 staff members,
01:20providing a rare glimmer of hope amid a disaster that has killed more than 1,000 people and left thousands
01:27missing.
01:27The school was swept away and its former site now lies in the riverbed, a poignant loss for Dawadi, who
01:35once
01:35attended the school as a student before returning as its headmaster.
01:39It's an emotional attachment with the school because I learned that same school. I get my own
01:46education from the school. And I'm giving the education to the people from last 23 years.
01:52And it means that 70 percent of my life I spend there.
01:58Parents credited the headmaster's quick actions with saving their children
02:02children as he helped evacuate the school before the flood struck. However, the disaster claimed lives
02:08across Bidur, with at least one school staff member still missing.
02:12The
