Teacher Ordered Students Uphill, Saved 900 Lives

Hundreds of schoolchildren may have been saved from Nepal's devastating flash floods when their principal pulled the plug on class. Headteacher Rajendra Dawadi says he ordered 900 students at Tribhuvan Trishuli Secondary School in Nuwakot to abandon lessons and head uphill after a flurry of urgent flood warnings, including one from a town just upstream. Minutes later, he watched a nearby hostel vanish under a torrent of water, per the Guardian. The school itself was buried under mud, per the BBC. A 16-year-old student says she and her friends survived "by just 10 seconds."

Dawadi considered ordering the evacuation after the end of the class period. But "if we had made the decision 10 minutes later, all of us, including the students and me, would not be able to speak to you today," he says, per the Guardian. "I feel proud that we saved so many lives," he adds, per the BBC. The flash flooding, triggered by a glacial collapse along the Nepal-Tibet border, has killed at least 781 people, left thousands missing, and destroyed or damaged at least 69 schools, affecting nearly 19,000 children. Nepal's foreign minister is urging a global response, arguing the country is bearing a heavy climate burden despite low emissions.