Rescue workers inspect the area and damaged structures along the Trishuli River in Nepal (AP Photo)
Looking back down from the ridge and seeing the river wash over our playground was terrifying, but I am just glad all my friends made it safely,” Class 10 student Sunita Tamang told TOI . Class 12 student Rohan Shrestha remembered hearing the flood before seeing it.
Two staff members remain missing, Dawadi said. The school is completely covered in mud now, and we don’t know when we can go back to class, but we are looking after each other in the temporary camp,” he said. Non-teaching employee Chulrim Lama had been behind him during the evacuation and may have turned back towards the school, possibly to close a door. Lower-secondary teacher Santos Parihar was believed to have been in his room in the teachers’ quarters. “We were getting ready for the morning assembly when teachers started screaming for us to run up the hill. I left my backpack and books behind in the classroom. “The roar of the river sounded like a low thunder before we even saw the mud coming. The teachers moved fast getting everyone out of the hostels and to higher ground.
Principal Rajendra Dawadi immediately ordered around 900 students at Tribhuvan Trishuli Secondary School out. They escaped before the river wiped out the 76-year-old campus. Because their homes were far away, he told them to follow him uphill, when they asked Dawadi where they could go.
Now, Dawadi, teachers and students agree on one thing: classes must restart at the earliest, but the school must never be rebuilt beside the river. It has to rise on higher ground. Close to a thousand people, including the children, had been inside the school when the warnings arrived. Thirty girls were in the residential hostel. Dawadi ordered a non-teaching employee to ring the bell and teachers began clearing classrooms. Staff helped students suffering panic attacks. One girl was being examined by a nurse in the infirmary. All students who were inside the school survived.