Approximately 600 students remain unaccounted for in Rasuwa and Nuwakot districts after the August 26 Bhotekoshi flooding. The catastrophic mid-morning flood tore through settlements and educational institutions, forcing authorities to completely suspend academic operations across five local units.

According to figures compiled by local Education Development and Coordination Units (EDCUs), local governments, and educational institutions, an estimated 280 children are missing in Rasuwa, while between 300 and 350 others remain unaccounted for in neighbouring Nuwakot.

“We are actively liaising with headmasters to collect verified data on missing students, though school heads are struggling to provide exact figures due to broken communications,” said Surya Bahadur Khatri, head of the Nuwakot Education Development and Coordination Unit. “Although a few missing students have been located, new reports of unaccounted-for children continue to arrive from various schools. We estimate that at least 300 pupils are missing in our district.”

In Rasuwa, Durga Prasad Silwal, chief of the local education unit, said that official verification is ongoing. “Our preliminary records indicate that 280 students are currently missing across the district, though official confirmation of their status remains pending as search and rescue teams navigate destroyed infrastructure,” said Silwal.

In Bidur Municipality of Nuwakot alone, roughly 250 children are missing since the floods hit, according to Navaraj Sapkota, school inspector of the municipality's education unit. “The situation on the ground is deeply distressing. In some cases, we have located surviving parents who cannot find their children, while in other instances, surviving students are searching for missing parents,” said Sapkota. Bidur houses 170 educational institutions—142 community schools and 28 private schools.

The disaster has also taken a toll on teachers and school staff. Education units confirmed that 22 teachers and school staff members remain missing across both districts. Additionally, several teachers from Dhading and Gorkha who had traveled to Rasuwa for the Gosainkunda pilgrimage were caught in the deluge and remain missing.

Rasuwa reported 16 missing teachers—15 from community schools and one from a private institution—while Nuwakot confirmed six missing teachers.

Although several bodies of victims have been recovered in downstream districts, authorities have yet to verify the exact number of identified students or teachers.

School operators described scenes of utter desolation.

Somlal Lawat, founder principal of Uttargaya Public School in ward 10 of Bidur Municipality, expressed anguish over the destruction. “Nothing remains of our school; the entire premises have been reduced to a barren riverbank. It feels as though we have been cast back into the Stone Age,” said Lawat. “Both of our school buses were swept away. We managed to rescue 30 children from one bus, but we don’t know the fate of the remaining students out of our total enrollment of 362. Because many parents are also missing, establishing an accurate headcount has proven impossible.”

Similar tragedies unfolded across the region. At Neelakantha Secondary School in ward 5 of Uttargaya Rural Municipality, Rasuwa, 200 of the 496 enrolled students and four staff members remain missing.

“The flood struck before classes had formally begun. Some children were en route, others were waiting for school transport, and many were still at home,” said Madhav Lamichhane, the school headmaster. “We managed to evacuate students who had already reached the premises to higher ground. Although our primary building survived, two secondary teachers, a school nurse, and an early childhood development tutor were caught in the flood, and scores of pupils are missing.”

Following the flooding, local administrations shut down all schools across four local units in Rasuwa—Gosainkunda, Uttargaya, Kalika, and Amachhodingmo rural municipalities—and throughout Bidur Municipality in Nuwakot. In Amachhodingmo alone, local officials reported that 58 parents are missing. As a result, many surviving children have been left without guardians.

According to data released by the Ministry of Education, the floods affected 22 schools across Rasuwa, Nuwakot, and Dhading, with 12 institutions completely destroyed.

In Rasuwa, four schools—three public and one private—were swept away. “The sites have been reduced to rubble and river sediment; no structural trace of the buildings remains,” said Silwal, adding that Rasuwa’s 97 schools cannot resume normal operations immediately. “We are gathering data on orphaned children across all the local units. It is impossible to restart classes without first providing comprehensive psychological counseling to traumatised students.”

To assess the scale of damage, the Ministry of Education dispatched high-level technical teams to the affected districts. The technical teams have been asked to submit field assessment reports within seven days to guide emergency recovery plans.

In Nuwakot, eight schools suffered complete destruction—six in Bidur Municipality and two in Tarakeshwar Rural Municipality. Six of them are community schools and two private. In partially damaged schools, floodwaters inundated ground floors with a heavy layer of thick mud, though the structures remain standing.

Among the destroyed facilities is Nepal Rastriya Basic School in Gosainkunda, which had 109 enrolled students. In Uttargaya, Chipleti Basic School (11 students), Malika Devi Basic School (21 students), and Modern Trinity Boarding School (169 students) were completely swept away.

In ward 1 of Bidur Municipality, the Tribhuvan Trishuli Secondary School with over 1,650 students saw all 14 of its buildings buried under mud and debris. School officials said students survived because classes had been dismissed before the main flood surge hit. However, Ram Chandra Basic School in ward 10 of the municipality lost all five of its buildings and a school vehicle, while Trishuli Community Boarding School in ward 1, serving 250 students, was completely washed away alongside students who were walking to class. Chetana Child Development Centre, which had 15 toddlers enrolled, was also flattened. In Dhading’s Galchhi, Amaleshwar Gurukul Sanskrit Secondary School was buried, while dozens of other facilities had ground-floor classrooms filled with sludge.

Beyond physical destruction, surviving school structures are currently being used as emergency relief shelters for displaced villagers, further delaying the resumption of classes. Local education units are coordinating with district administration offices and the education ministry to track missing individuals and clear debris from damaged classrooms. Over 7,000 students across the region have been directly impacted by the disaster.