A headteacher has told how he saved 900 pupils' lives from the Nepal floods - by quickly evacuating them just 10 minutes before the waters hit. Rajendra Dawadi, who is in charge of Tribhuvan Trishuli Secondary School in Nuwakot, told the BBC he had received four calls at 09:10 local time ( ) warning about the disaster, which has now claimed at least 794 lives. He quickly decided to evacuate, telling the children to run to higher ground and ordering buses full of students to turn around to flee the area.
Dawadi said: "If we didn't make a quick decision, if it was 10 minutes later, we all - including the students and me - wouldn't be able to speak to you today." What we know about deadly Nepal-Tibet floods The warnings had come from four different people in the space of minutes and helped him evaluate the impending danger. "A parent came and told me that 'a big flood was coming, I am here to take my daughter, I will take her'," he added. "Parents don't rush without a strong reason, so it was confirmed that I shouldn't waste a second to evacuate the children.
"I decided I shouldn't delay any more. Even if the flood was not coming, it was just a matter of a single day's classes. "I feel proud that we saved so many lives." The floods - which decimated parts of Nepal on Wednesday and have left at least 2,426 people missing - saw the school building buried under mud and debris.
Dawadi said the waters arrived so quickly that a hostel building about 100m (328ft) from the river was engulfed immediately. At first, many students did not realise how serious the situation was. Pupil Yunisha Amatya, 16, said she scrambled to safety with her friends just before the flood hit.
"I along with my friends survived by just 10 seconds only," she told the BBC. "Just before the flood came, we were in the class studying. Teachers had gathered in one place and initially had no idea what had happened.
After five minutes teachers came and informed us about the flood and asked us to go home." She said one student fainted after hearing about the disaster, but many initially underestimated the danger and waited for classmates who were in a maths lesson. Yunisha and her friends scrambled uphill through an escape route behind the school. "I could not walk fast, and my friends helped me to climb uphill.
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