Nepal flood toll passes 950 as rescuers free people trapped in a tunnel

The death toll from the flash floods in Nepal passed 950. Hundreds of people were feared stuck in hydropower tunnels after the floods. School principal Rajendra Dawadi was reported to have saved more than 900 students and 16 faculty members at Tribhuvan Trishuli Secondary School in Bidur, Nuwakot district. The rescue at the school came 10 minutes before the flash floods hit.

The school account is a survival story inside a much larger death toll. More than 900 students and 16 staff were moved before the water arrived. The principal is the person credited. The toll above 950 is the national flood count in this later report, not the count at that one school.

South Korea's foreign ministry said it would send a 44-member emergency relief team to help search and rescue. The Nepali Army reported that around 119 people had been rescued. Those figures are rescuers dispatched and people brought out. They are not a new death toll.

The United Arab Emirates said it would deploy an emergency relief mission for people affected by the floods and landslides. That pledge is an overseas assistance step. It does not include a dollar amount in the short note. It adds another country to the response.

The Nepali Army later rescued two people from a tunnel at the Upper Trishuli 3A Hydropower Station in Rasuwa district. The rescue came a week after the floods. Two survivors from a tunnel match the earlier fear that people were stuck in hydropower tunnels. The report does not say how many others remained inside.

The confirmed update is a Nepal death toll past 950, a school evacuation of more than 900 students and 16 faculty minutes before impact, a South Korean team of 44, about 119 people rescued by the army, an Emirati relief mission, and two people brought out of the Upper Trishuli 3A tunnel in Rasuwa. The school evacuation and the national death toll are different counts. The tunnel rescue does not close the wider missing-person figure.