Under a tree on a hillside overlooking Nepal’s Trishuli valley, more than 1,600 schoolchildren waited in fear as the place they had studied in for years disappeared beneath mud, ice and floodwater. Minutes earlier, they had been inside Tribhuvan Trishuli Secondary School in Nuwakot, preparing for their morning classes and assembly.
Then the warnings came. A phone call from upstream. A frantic parent. Water rushing towards the school. Principal Rajendra Dawadi did not wait for certainty.
