Natural disasters, whether they be floods, glacial lake outburst floods, landslides, earthquakes, fires, hailstorms, droughts or epidemics, are a regular occurrence in Nepal. According to government statistics, the human loss in the last 20 years (19832003) was 21,195, an average of over 1000 deaths a year. A report on global disaster risk ranks Nepal 11 in the world in terms of vulnerability to earthquakes and 30 in terms of water-induced disasters. And, with the impact of global warming, the risk will only increase.

Natural disaster has terrible repercussions for individuals, from the loss of life and livelihood to injury, psychological trauma, migration, starvation, beggary, suicide, disability and illness. For a community as a whole, disaster causes significant economic loss, erodes social and financial capital, decreases agricultural productivity, and damages physical infrastructures like drinking water and irrigation systems and hydropower plants. The poor and disadvantaged are especially vulnerable to disaster because they have so little resilience. To mitigate the effects of disaster, to increase people’s resilience to disaster risks, and to transfer risk; adopting a disaster risk reduction (DRR2) strategy is crucial.