A school bag is full of mud brought in by the recent flash floods, at the Shree Bagheswori Madhyamik School in Nepal. (Photo: AP)
Morning assembly was about to begin at Bageshwori Higher Secondary School on August 26 when teachers learned that floodwaters were heading towards Baireni. After that, our teacher Prakash Malla (Principal) announced from the office to get out of the school and all students ran away from here and are safe,” he told ANI.
Science teacher Dipendra Wagle said one of the staff members received information from Nuwakot as students were getting ready for physical training (PT) or assembly. A guardian living upstream had alerted the school about the approaching flood. “When the students were preparing to attend the PT or the assembly, one of our teachers got information about the flood from Nuwakot. Marks left on the walls indicated both the level reached by the floodwater and the damage inside the school.
Around 400 children were out of the school before the water arrived. Students would normally have been arriving then for an assembly lasting about 15-20 minutes.
Principal Prakash Malla told students to move to higher ground. Binita Ramtel had barely settled into her classroom and put down her bag when students were told to leave. “I had just arrived at the school, I had just kept my bag in the classroom and was preparing to come to the ground for the morning assembly, then the teachers made the announcement that the flood was on its way and asked us to evacuate, after which we fled from here,” Binita told ANI while visiting her classroom.
It was after 9am local time when the water entered Baireni. Bageshwori Higher Secondary School stands close to the river.