In Ratnawati village, Phikkal Rural Municipality-6, Sindhuli district, Dil Bahadur Majhi stood by the Sunkoshi River on September 27, 2024, watching the water rise faster than he had ever seen. The indigenous Majhi fisherman, whose family had lived along these banks for generations, felt the ground tremble as the monsoon rains pounded the hills above. By the next evening, the flood had swept away his home, four ropanis of paddy fields, and nearly everything they owned. Dil Bahadur, his wife Suntali, and their three children fled to a relative's cramped house, then scraped together a flimsy hut of wood and plastic just 20 meters from the river's edge. "Our forefathers stayed here without such big floods," Dil Bahadur told reporters later, his voice steady but eyes hollow. "Now we have nothing, and no one has come to help us rebuild."
Going through recent media reports about the recurrent losses of lives and properties, we noticed a pattern: there are communities who fall victim to these hazards more often than others. Not distant headlines, but families like the Majhis—socioeconomically marginalized indigenous communities, tethered to hazard-prone lands by poverty and tradition. The National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Authority's 2024 report tallies the toll: 3,074 incidents, 568 deaths (329 men, 239 women), 747 injuries, 66 missing, and 2.24 million families affected. Losses hit $379.14 million, with $58.98 million in agriculture and irrigation alone—crops and livelihoods erased in days. These frontline victims, often from Dalit, indigenous, or women-headed households, bear the brunt because their settlements hug riverbanks, steep slopes, and floodplains where the monsoon's gifts turn deadly.
From June to September, the monsoon dumps 80 percent of the country's rain, driven by warm winds from the Indian Ocean slamming into the Himalayan barrier. This orographic lift soaks the southern slopes, irrigating terraced fields and swelling rivers like the Koshi, Gandaki, and Karnali. For a nation where agriculture employs 64 percent of the workforce and feeds 30 million, the monsoon is essential: it enables paddy—the staple crop on 1.5 million hectares—sustaining Nepal and exporting to over a billion in South Asia. Without it, valleys would dry, aquifers empty, and food security crumble.
The sharpened edge of climate change
Erratic patterns—delayed onsets, intense bursts—trigger chaos. In 2024, a low-pressure system stalled over central Nepal, extending rains 10 days past average and dumping record falls since 1970. Mountains unleash landslides, burying villages; valleys face flash floods from glacial outbursts; Terai plains drown in weeks-long inundations. Deforestation erodes slopes, unchecked mining weakens riverbanks, and rapid urbanization clogs drains. Marginalized groups, denied fertile land by historical inequities, settle in these hotspots: Majhis fishing on river edges, Tharus on char islands, Dalits in low-lying shanties. Women and children, 60 percent of the displaced, endure secondary horrors—disease, violence, lost schooling.
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Smallholders till less than a hectare, rain-fed for 70 percent of output, with women doing 80 percent of the labor amid male migration. A flood like Sunkoshi’s wipes $58.98 million in crops, pushing families into debt and hunger. The Majhis, the boatmen who are also farmers by heritage, lost not just fields but cultural roots—the river that fed them now a thief. Post-disaster, they replant on silt-choked soil, borrowing seed they can't repay, trapped in cycles where one bad season means malnutrition or migration.
In the mountains of Ramechhap district, Gokulganga Rural Municipality-6, another story unfolded last July. A landslide claimed three Tamang sisters: 17-year-old Sita, 15-year-old Ashika, and 13-year-old Laxmi. The indigenous Tamang family, scraping by on marginal hill farms, woke to the roar of earth giving way after days of downpour. Their home, perched on a steep slope scarred by erosion, vanished under mud. For families like theirs—highland herders and laborers—landslides claim 40 percent of monsoon deaths. Rebuilding means more debt, more exposure; without insurance or warnings tailored to remote hamlets, they gamble each season.
Intensifying flood incidents in Rautahat
Down in the Terai's Gaur Municipality, Rautahat district, floods in late August 2024 submerged 2,500 of 9,000 homes. Jamuni Devi, 30, a Dalit mother from a marginalized settlement, swept mud from her yard, her children playing amid trash and straw. Two neighbors drowned; a 55-year-old man slipped to his death in the chaos. Jamuni's family, like 541 affected households, survived on puffed rice for days, her fields ruined. These plains, Nepal's breadbasket, turn to lakes under prolonged rains, breeding cholera in open-defecation zones. Dalit and Tharu communities, landless and informal, lack embankments—secondary risks like rashes on infants from fouled water hit hardest.
In Kathmandu Valley's southern informal settlements, September 28–29 floods killed 37, turning streets into torrents. Sita Gurung, a Janajati single mother, lost her two daughters, aged 8 and 12, when their riverside shanty collapsed into the Bagmati. Rescued half-drowned, Sita wandered relief centers, one of 518,000 impacted. Urban sprawl—386 percent built-up growth since 1990—blocks natural drainage; the poor crowd floodplains, amplifying losses.
These stories, drawn from various sources listed in the references, provide ample guidance to identify the frontline victims of disasters—Majhis by the Sunkoshi, Tamangs on eroding slopes, Dalits in Terai squats, socioeconomically poor families in urban shadows. Recurrent disasters entrench their marginalization—poverty rates at 25 percent, limited adaptation tools—while the monsoon's boons mock their losses. Nepal must pivot: gender-responsive warnings, resilient crops, equitable land reforms, watershed protection. Empower these families with secure homes and voices in planning, and the monsoon can sustain, not shatter. Until then, they stand resilient, patching lives against the next storm.
Ngamindra Dahal, PhD, is a Senior Research Fellow at Nepal Water Conservation Foundation and a visiting faculty at Kathmandu University.
Bhagirath Yogi is a former BBC Nepali correspondent. He is the chief editor of www.southasiatime.com.
