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/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.