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NUWAKOT, Nepal: Rajendra Dawadi was inside his school near Nepal\u2019s Trishuli River with around 900 students last week when a colleague delivered an urgent warning.<\/strong><\/p>\n \u201cMy accountant came to the school and said, \u2018The flood is coming, the flood is coming\u2019,\u201d the school principal told AFP in a recent interview.<\/p>\n Dawadi quickly ordered an evacuation, and teachers hurried hundreds of students from classrooms to higher ground.<\/p>\n Minutes later, the 47-year-old watched the Trishuli Bazaar Secondary School he had run for years collapse into a raging torrent.<\/p>\n \u201cIf the information was wrong, we would lose a day of schooling,\u201d he recalled of the morning of August 26. \u201cBut if it was true, we were going to lose our lives.\u201d<\/p>\n Students were panicked, Dawadi said, and one girl fainted.<\/p>\n Bus drivers bringing in other students were asked to turn back, including one driver who had just entered school grounds.<\/p>\n But the timely evacuation saved some 900 lives.<\/p>\n Now, standing above the scarred banks of the river in Nuwakot district more than a week after the disaster, Dawadi described himself simply as \u201ca principal without a school\u201d.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n Five students died in the flooding outside the school, as well as a teacher and a security staff member, Dawadi said.<\/p>\n The staff member, who left the school after him, \u201chad probably wanted to close the gate\u201d, he said.<\/p>\n \u2018Nothing left\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n Authorities in Trishuli Bazaar had not provided an evacuation plan, Dawadi said.<\/p>\n Some residents tried to cross the bridge but were swept away. The others took refuge on higher ground.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen I looked back, the school was standing there like the finest of buildings, and in five minutes, everything collapsed,\u201d Dawadi recalled.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s also the school where I studied. There was nothing left.\u201d<\/p>\n Santoshi Dotel, 17, was in accounting class when the evacuation order came. At first, she struggled to comprehend the danger.<\/p>\n \u201cWe never would have thought the flood could reach such a scale,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n She initially went down to the river with her friend to try to cross and reach her family home.<\/p>\n Then the water surged.<\/p>\n \u201cThe bridge was swept away,\u201d she said. \u201cI started to cry because I thought I would never get home and that there was nothing we could do.\u201d<\/p>\n Her friend pulled her up a hillside as the flood roared below.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n It was only four days later that a helicopter finally reunited her with her family.<\/p>\n \u201cI found my mother as I stepped out of the helicopter,\u201d she said. \u201cShe hugged me and started to cry. My mind just stopped working.\u201d<\/p>\n Her mother, Durga Dotel, had feared the worst.<\/p>\n \u201cSeeing the river in flood, I had lost all hope that my daughter had survived,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n According to figures cited by Save the Children, at least 69 schools were destroyed or damaged, disrupting the education of nearly 19,000 children.<\/p>\n Dawadi said the disaster was \u201cfar worse\u201d than the earthquake that hit Nepal in 2015.<\/p>\n \u201cThe school had been completely destroyed (after the earthquake), but we rebuilt it,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \u201cThis time, we\u2019ve lost the land and the building. We need a school again. But first, we need somewhere safe to build it.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n