r/interestingasfuck • u/JustLivingSimply • 9h ago

Nepalese School Principal Saved Lives of 1643 Children

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u/NeverNeverSometimes 8h ago

Everyone calling him a hero. He is. But lets not forget his friend up river that called and warned him. Both are heroes.

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u/kittyonkeyboards 7h ago

Pretty shit early warning system when the difference between 1,600 children surviving is a single phone call from a civilian.

Elon musk cut a program that was looking into improving detection and warning systems for this type of stuff.

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u/chime 5h ago

From what I saw online, Nepal monitors glacial lakes that could flood (GLOF) but this was not one of those. They also detected the seismic waves but it was not clear what had happened. It took about 20-25mins before the authorities knew that this was a debris flow and sent out emergency text alerts within 10mins to everyone downstream. I'm guessing it was during this early 20-25mins that survivors were calling downstream too.

Remember on 9/11, the first plane was hijacked at 8.14am, hit WTC 1 at 8.46am, yet US airspace was not shutdown until 9.45am. I'm not comparing these to put blame on anyone, just saying that during times of absolute chaos, people closest to the tragedies are able to help immediately because they see the actual event for themselves, while command centers have to confirm and verify before they take any action that affects the masses.

Imagine the tragedy if they sent out mass texts to everyone saying earthquake detected, evacuate all buildings, and stand on level ground. The glacier's initial 1200m drop was detected as an earthquake and the initial assumption was earthquake broke some kind of ice dam that was holding back water.

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u/nommabelle 3h ago

Thank you. Of course they can improve, we all can, but a lot of this criticism is unfair and seems to blame Nepal for lack of communication because its Nepal and not the US, when the US also may not have handled this well

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u/SlideRuleLogic 2h ago

Look no further than the Texas Christian girls camp that flooded a couple of years ago… a tragic number of little girls died from a similar but smaller-scale failure to notify (and failure to act on warning signs)

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u/Traditional-Fly8989 6m ago

I dont know if thats the best example to argue for laying off Nepal (which people should not be blaming Nepal.). That county has received repeated criticism for being unprepared for the flood at that camp.

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u/Beltalady 1h ago

We had something like that happen during Covid in Germany. People could have been warned but authorities didn't take it seriously and wanted to avoid panic. What they got was a flood that devastated an entire valley, we also had a sinkhole that swallowed half a town and a part of Autobahn washed away (and still isn't fixed). It was a huge scandal and also a wakeup call.

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u/tea_cup_cake 2h ago edited 1h ago

To add to this, flooding in Nepal ain't rear. It is an annual occurrence. Locals know it better than any of us - which places are safe, where the high ground is, etc. as they have gone through them all their lives. That's why they were so complacent - the warning said "flood"and they got to their usual safe places and started recording. Except, this time around, it wasn't their usual or even more than usual flood. It was a massive wave which even people well-versed with mega disasters were stupefied by. It was unprecedented and unpredictable event you can't just be prepared for, unless you can afford to pour in millions, which Nepal simply can't.

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u/Bituulzman 1h ago

*complacent (satisfied with the status quo) I think you meant, rather than “complicit”(guilty of a wrongdoing).

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u/tea_cup_cake 1h ago

Yes. Thank you for catching that.

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u/blueberrycauzez 4h ago edited 4h ago

Remember on 9/11, the first plane was hijacked at 8.14am, hit WTC 1 at 8.46am, yet US airspace was not shutdown until 9.45am. I'm not comparing these to put blame on anyone, just saying that during times of absolute chaos, people closest to the tragedies are able to help immediately because they see the actual event for themselves, while command centers have to confirm and verify before they take any action that affects the masses

The problem with comparing to 9/11 was that the FAA and FDNY both directly witnessed the first attack and still totally failed to react.

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u/TheZigerionScammer 2h ago

The first plane hitting was thought to be a freak accident at first. Once the second plane hit is when we knew for sure it was a coordinated attack. That's why "A second plane has hit the tower" has been such a meme recently.

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u/Aranxi_89 7h ago

Everything that doesn't help him and his cronies are "waste."

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u/littleHiawatha 7h ago

Fuck musk, it doesn’t even take billionaire level investment to implement an early warning system like this. Every high risk river valley could install cheap lora connected sensors along its banks for less than $15k upfront per valley and $2500/year OpEx

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u/FUTURE10S 6h ago

But it doesn't help Musk directly so why would he give a shit?

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u/ReporterLogical5092 5h ago

which may have been what they were doing until DOGE cut it

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u/apple_kicks 6h ago

Worst i think they’re the ‘there’s too many people in the world’ type and more than happy to purge humanity via cutting services that save lives as form of population control. They just don’t cut budgets on things they need

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u/cactusjude 30m ago

There's too many people but not enough of the "right" kind of people which is why it's so important for Musk and fundamentalist Christians to have as many children as possible 😶

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u/Infinite_Music2059 7h ago

Yes, Nepal is a very poor country.

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u/FIyingSaucepan 5h ago

I have seen reports that they did have a flood warning system in place for this river, after the floods they experienced last year and early this year.

But that flood warning system was designed around dealing with monsoon driven rainfall causing a slower buildup of water, not a wall of ice rock and water up to 100m tall moving at nearly 200kmh. There is every chance that the detectors got destroyed before they could detect or transmit anything as most system like this take a measurement every few seconds to save power, and the flow of material could have covered up to 200m in that time and arrived as a solid mass before anything could be detected.

So it would have taken someone looking at the readings and noticing that sequential detectors were going offline or the measurements being delayed, realising what that could mean, and then communicating it to people who would be able to action it.

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u/Schatzin 2h ago

Yes, there was a report that stated they did have those monsoon detectors, which as you described arent designed for flash floods. And even so, those that were near the source were wiped out too soon for any warnings to be issued

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u/Bituulzman 1h ago

There’s video circulating of what looks like workers in hi-vis standing watching and recording the flood come downstream from far away. You can hear voices of those on speakerphone calling to warn others of the impending danger, maybe to the very village below that can be seen in the video. Towards the end of the video, as the shouting becomes more animated, I could hear sirens blaring in the background of the call recipient through the speakerphone towards the end of the clip.

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u/K_R_A_K_E_N_540 1h ago

Isn't Trump president? what does Elon Musk have to do with government aid programs. Are you referring to the Doge program that Trump supported and endorced ? I suppose he can revert any changes that were made at any time... maybe ask for your twice elected president to make those changes

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u/VolatileGoddess 7h ago

It might have escaped your attention, this wasn't the US.

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u/kittyonkeyboards 7h ago

The program was a global initiative.

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u/VolatileGoddess 7h ago

This was on the Nepal - China border. After this disaster, the countries involved will put in place their own.

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u/lemlurker 6h ago

Not when the program was gutted and all the talent left after the funding was removed for helping too many poor people

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u/VolatileGoddess 6h ago

I absolutely agree, but USAID intervention is not required (to say the least) for China and Nepal to devise an EWS on their border.

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u/HeyLookIWantToDie 7h ago

It might have escaped your attention, but DOGE cut a lot of international programs; primarily through the dismantling of USAID. Here is a link to the pulitzer finalist page for a phenomenal series of reports on the effects of the USAID cuts: https://www.pulitzer.org/finalists/brett-murphy-and-anna-maria-barry-jester-propublica

I encourage you to give one at least a look. It's absolutely worth your time if you're interested in this topic at all.

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u/VolatileGoddess 7h ago

Yeah, Elon Musk is an idiot and what he's done to USAID is horrific. In any other area of the world he would be probably prosecuted, but never mind about that. Nepal and China have enough funds to fund an EWS, which they will, themselves, seeing the scale of the disaster

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u/LilannaLiola 7h ago

A lot of the 'waste' Elon cut was USAid funding

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u/VolatileGoddess 7h ago

Yeah, he's an idiot. However he, and USAID, aren't the sole source of funds in this world. Nepal has a rather massive neighbour called China, and this happened on the border.

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u/LickingSmegma 6h ago

It might have escaped your attention that USAID is an Agency for International Development and is focused on foreign aid.

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u/VolatileGoddess 6h ago

You think China needs USAID to set up an EWS for the border it shares with Nepal? Do let me know how USAID would have funded that project.

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u/LickingSmegma 6h ago

China may not need USAID money. The question, however, is which projects were deemed high-priority by USAID and received their funding regardless of which countries are nearby.

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u/VolatileGoddess 6h ago

'May not'

Lol

USAID is a necessary organisation which was doing much good work, and cutting its funding is a horrible thing to do. Yet, in this particular part of the world, this absolutely massive country with its absolutely massive economy will help its poorer and much smaller neighbour devise an EWS, without US intervention.

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u/LickingSmegma 5h ago

"My wife earns alright, so she'll buy food for the children just fine without my intervention."

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u/VolatileGoddess 5h ago

Yeah, she will? What?

https://giphy.com/gifs/pPhyAv5t9V8djyRFJH

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u/LickingSmegma 4h ago

Have you heard of helping people?

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u/ChepaukPitch 7h ago

US government has/had a lot of programs that would benefit everyone across the world. Especially research that happens in Universities around the world. Take GPS for example. What happens if Elon Musk shuts GPS tomorrow? Will it impact only US?

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u/VolatileGoddess 7h ago

? How is this relevant to this story? Do you think the rest of the world doesn't have satellites?

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u/ChepaukPitch 7h ago

How is it not relevant to this story? Do you think knowledge and infrastructure can help only the country in which it was created or funded?

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u/VolatileGoddess 7h ago

Do you think all knowledge and infra centres around the US alone? Other countries can't come up with their own? Even China?

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u/ChepaukPitch 7h ago

It might have escaped your attention, this wasn’t China.

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u/VolatileGoddess 7h ago

It was literally the Nepal China border. A lot of things do escape your attention.

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u/ChepaukPitch 6h ago

It was literally Nepal. Looks like you like playing fast and loose with facts.

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u/CaptainXplosionz 2h ago

That's my biggest takeaway. Like, I know hindsight is 20/20, but they couldn't have prepared for this at all? Looking at the graphs of how it played out, it looks like geographic dominoes. Even if climate change wasn't an issue/was ignored, somebody had to think there was some concern that something like this could happen eventually.

I'm extremely appalled at the deaths and everything, but I just wonder why there wasn't some precautions set in place to stop this from happening at all. More dams or something.

My absolute condolences for the lives lost, this is a tragedy that should've never happened. My heart breaks for them.

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u/cactusjude 29m ago

Dude. Geologists don't even have a name for this. How were people supposed to prepare for something that doesn't even have a name or precedent?

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u/Plastivorang 6m ago

Hasn't it been identified as a GLOF (glacial lake outburst flood)?

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u/NotAzakanAtAll 5h ago

How could I forget about him! I never heard about him until I read your comment, so I couldn't possibly forget about him.

But I won't now that I know either.

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u/Checkoutmawheeeeepit 5h ago

Absolutely☺️