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Nepal floods: meet the principal whose quick thinking saved 900 students

Rajendra Dawadi was inside his classroom when a colleague rushed in with a warning: floodwaters were racing through Nepal’s Trishuli Valley, tearing apart homes, bridges…

By Samantha Johnson / September 1, 2026
Rajendra Dawadi was inside his classroom when a colleague rushed in with a warning: floodwaters were racing through Nepal’s Trishuli Valley, tearing apart homes, bridges and entire villages.

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, the principal, had little time to act. He rang the school bell and ordered his students and staff out of the building and towards higher ground.

“I immediately decided to stop … school” and get the children out, he said.

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 – and where he had spent years teaching – disappear beneath a torrent of water, mud, boulders and debris. Two staff members could not make it and remain missing.

Dawadi’s decision to evacuate the school saved at least 900 students from last week’s devastating flash floods in Nepal, unleashed after a glacial collapse in the Himalayas. The disaster killed over 950 people in Nepal and Tibet, while more than 4,400 remain missing.
Tribhuvan Trishuli Secondary School principal Rajendra Dawadi looks across to Trishuli Valley in Nepal’s Nuwakot district on Monday. Photo: AP
Tribhuvan Trishuli Secondary School principal Rajendra Dawadi looks across to Trishuli Valley in Nepal’s Nuwakot district on Monday. Photo: AP

As Nepal grapples with the catastrophic natural disaster, Dawadi’s story has emerged as a striking example of foresight and courage.

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