Lightning, fire and cold waves
Three hazards that kill steadily rather than all at once, which is exactly why they get less attention and less preparation than they deserve.
Nepal loses roughly a hundred people a year to lightning, which over a decade is comparable to a major single disaster. Deaths cluster in the pre-monsoon and early monsoon months and fall heavily on people working outdoors: farmers in open fields, herders, and children walking home.
Fire is a dry-season hazard. Traditional village housing is built close together with timber and thatch, cooking is done with fire, and water pressure for firefighting is often nothing at all. A single house fire in a dense lane becomes a village fire within minutes, and the fire service, where there is one, may be an hour away on a bad road.
Cold waves hit the Tarai each winter. Dense fog holds temperatures down for days at a time and the deaths fall on people without heating, adequate housing or warm clothing: the very old, the very young, and anyone sleeping outside.
None of the three produces a single event large enough to command a national response, and each is largely preventable with cheap measures taken in advance.
Warning signs
Lightning: count the seconds between the flash and the thunder. Under thirty seconds means the storm is close enough to strike where you are standing.
Lightning: hair standing on end, or a buzzing from metal objects, means a strike is imminent. Crouch low, feet together, immediately.
Fire: in dense housing, smell smoke and act rather than investigate.
What to do
Lightning: get inside a building or a hard-topped vehicle. Stay there for thirty minutes after the last thunder, not thirty seconds.
Lightning: do not shelter under a lone tree, in an open field, on a ridge, or beside metal fencing or machinery.
Fire: know two ways out of a village lane rather than one, and keep the second one clear.
Fire: cooking fires and stoves are the common start. Do not leave them unattended and keep fuel away from them.
Cold: a cold wave kills through prolonged exposure, so check on elderly neighbours and anyone sleeping outdoors rather than assuming they are coping.
Where Nepal stands
These hazards kill steadily rather than in single large events, so they attract less attention and less preparation.
Common questions
How many people does lightning kill in Nepal?
Around a hundred a year, with the deaths concentrated among people working outdoors in the pre-monsoon and monsoon months.
Is it safe to use a mobile phone in a thunderstorm?
Indoors, yes. Outdoors the phone is not the danger, being outdoors is. Get inside.
What counts as a cold wave in the Tarai?
A run of days where dense fog keeps daytime temperatures unusually low. It is the duration rather than any single very cold night that causes the deaths.
Emergency numbers
Police 100. Ambulance 102. Nepal's disaster hotline 1149. The full list, including district control rooms and embassies, is worth saving before you need it.
The other four hazards
- Glacial lake outburst flood (GLOF)A meltwater lake high in the mountains breaks through the loose rock and ice holding it back, and empties down the valley at once
- EarthquakesIndia is pushing under Asia at about 2 cm a year
- Landslides and debris flowsSteep slopes, heavy rain and cut roads together cause a large share of Nepal’s monsoon deaths every year, usually at night and usually with no warning
- Monsoon river floodsJune to September brings most of Nepal’s yearly rain