After school children started shivering and falling sick due to the extreme cold, a joint meeting of teachers' organizations and DEO Rautahat decided to close down the schools for four days, Nepal Teachers' Union (NTU) vice-chairman Mahadev Sah informed.
“The schools will remain close until Friday. We came to this decision after sudden change in the weather caused the students to fall sick,” Sah said.
According to him, the schools lack basic infrastructure that could prevent students from cold.
One of the students pursuing BBS, Nehal Agrawal, fell down all of a sudden due to excessive cold while he was inside his classroom. Following the incident, Gauri Shankar Campus in Gaur, Rautahat announced the four-day vacation, campus administration chief Mohan Yadav told Republica.
Atish Kumar Baidhya, principal at Prabhat English Boarding School, said that the school children have started falling sick in the classrooms. “It is challenging to operate the schools during these days,” he said.
Due to cold, children coming from villages reach the school late, according to Santosh Paudel, principal of International Bal Academy.
Meanwhile, the number of patients being admitted to hospitals in the district is on the rise, according to Dr Pramod Yadav at Gaur Hospital. School children, elderly people, pregnant women, and newborns are among the patients that are mainly being admitted to the hospital. “They have been diagnosed with asthma, cough, pneumonia, diarrhea, hepatitis and fever,” Dr Yadav said.
In Parsa district, around 300 schools have been closed after the DEO's decision since last Sunday, according to District Education Officer Ram Binay Singh.
“It is difficult for schools to teach children in freezing cold,” he said.
Chairman of Nepal Red Cross Society, Parsa Chapter, Phool Mohhamad Miyan said that children, elderly and those who cannot afford warm clothes are the most affected due to the cold. “However, we'll start fire in furnaces in different parts of Birgunj city effective from tomorrow (Wednesday) to help people from the cold wave,” he told Republica.
Although the forest officials, local administration and police had decided in advance to distribute firewood to the locals, the decision had come into effect because the cold wave was yet to start.
The cold wave gripped the central Tarai 3 weeks late this season.
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