DHADING – In a Nepal district among the hardest hit by Wednesday’s devastating floods, a class of schoolchildren survived by chance after stepping out of their classroom for lunch moments before floodwaters swept through.
Other students at the Dhading school also made it out safely after teachers urgently ordered them to abandon their classrooms just before the surge arrived.
“The teachers said, ‘There is a flood and you should leave bags and tiffins,’” recalled Lakshmi Shrestha, whose child attends the school. “That’s how they managed to survive.”
By Sunday, Shrestha was among the parents and children returning to the damaged school, searching for lost belongings and trying to recover whatever remained. Families said most of the school’s students appeared to have survived the flooding.
Inside, the scale of the disaster was visible everywhere. Heavy layers of brown and gray mud covered benches, walls and notebooks, while the courtyard lay buried under sediment. Watermarks etched across the walls showed how quickly the flood had risen. Small backpacks, caked in mud and some still decorated with bright key chains, sat scattered on benches and floors, waiting for their owners.
Kopila Mizar, another mother at the school, could not locate her son’s backpack. Still, she said the loss felt small compared with what had been spared.
“My son is alive, that is my biggest happiness,” she said.
Across Nepal’s flood-hit districts, at least 69 schools have been damaged or destroyed, threatening access to education for nearly 19,000 children, according to Save the Children. The nonprofit warned that the figures are expected to climb as rescue teams reach more affected communities.
The government ordered schools and universities to shut down for three days following torrential rains that triggered severe flash floods and landslides across parts of the country. University exams were also paused.
With communities still receiving constant flood warnings advising them to move to higher, safer areas, it’s unclear when classes will be able to resume.
Nepal’s disaster agency said Sunday the death toll had climbed to 788 with 2,502 missing, while Chinese authorities reported 16 deaths and 546 missing on the Chinese side of the border.
The missing include hundreds of people from over a dozen countries who were in the region to work, visit the mountains or make a pilgrimage to a sacred peak. On Sunday, Chinese state media said 261 foreigners were missing in Tibet, including over a hundred Nepalis and others from around the world.
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Associated Press reporter Victoria Milko contributed to this report.
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