Saved by a lunch break: Nepal floods destroyed many schools, but students at this school survived

DHADING, Nepal – In one of the areas worst hit by Wednesday’s (Aug 26) catastrophic floods in Nepal, a group of schoolchildren managed to survive when they happened to leave their classroom for their lunch break.Children attending other classes at the school in Dhading also escaped because teachers told them to quickly evacuate their classrooms shortly before the waters came crashing in.”The teachers said, ‘There is a flood and you should leave bags and tiffins,’” said Lakshmi Shrestha, the mother of a student attending the school. “That’s how they managed to survive.”Shrestha was among mothers and children who began to return to their school on Sunday to find the kids’ belongings and see what could be salvaged. The majority of the children at the school appeared to have survived the floods, the families said.Thick brown and gray mud coated the surfaces of school benches, walls and notebooks while the school’s courtyard was filled with sediment. Lines on the walls showed how high the water rapidly rose. A pile of small mud-caked backpacks, some with colourful key chains, were on the benches and floors, waiting to be claimed.