Kerala’s flood emergency is creating another public-health challenge alongside displacement, injuries and infrastructure damage. As people wade through floodwater, clean homes, move through stagnant water or gather in relief shelters, they face exposure to infectious diseases ranging from leptospirosis and dengue to diarrhoeal and respiratory infections.

The risks are emerging as Kerala already carries a substantial communicable-disease burden.

Kerala is India’s Leptospirosis Hotspot

India recorded 8,121 confirmed leptospirosis cases between January and June 2026, according to data tabled in the Rajya Sabha by the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare. More than half, 4,340 cases, or 53.4% — came from Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Telangana.

Kerala recorded the highest number at 1,726 cases, followed by Tamil Nadu with 1,473 and Karnataka with 624. Assam reported 786 cases and Maharashtra 780.

The figures place Kerala at the top of the national list even before the current flood emergency. That is significant because leptospirosis is strongly associated with exposure to contaminated water and soil — conditions that become more common during floods and the recovery period.

Floods Create Multiple Disease Pathways

Flooding does not produce one uniform disease pattern. Different infections emerge through different pathways and at different times. A 2026 systematic review in BMC Infectious Diseases, covering 71 studies published between 2014 and 2024, found consistent links between flooding and waterborne infections including leptospirosis, cholera, bacillary dysentery and hepatitis A/E. It also identified increased risks of vector-borne diseases such as dengue and malaria. Disease emergence varied from days to weeks depending on the pathogen and flood conditions.

The evidence is particularly strong for diarrhoeal disease. A meta-analysis of 42 studies found that floods were associated with a 40% higher risk of infectious diarrhoea, with the risk of bacterial diarrhoea increasing by 82%. For Kerala, this matters because diarrhoea was already one of the state’s most frequently reported communicable diseases.

During the first eight days of July 2026, government hospitals reported 19,428 diarrhoeal cases, alongside 84,658 fever cases. The same period recorded 834 dengue cases, 661 influenza cases, 113 leptospirosis cases, 197 jaundice cases, 56 malaria cases and 34 Shigella cases. Thirty people died from communicable diseases during those eight days.

Kerala’s Floods Offer a Warning

Kerala’s own experience shows why disease surveillance must continue after the rain stops. A study comparing leptospirosis in Kerala during 2017, 2018 and 2019 found higher case numbers in the flood years, with the strongest increase following the severe 2018 floods. Importantly, cases were highest during the post-flood period, indicating a time lag between flooding and disease emergence.

2018 floods identified 61 leptospirosis hotspots, compared with 34 in 2017 and 21 in 2019. Several hotspots overlapped with high flood-risk areas, while others were in places with limited access to hospitals. The finding points to a larger preparedness opportunity: flood-risk mapping could be combined with disease-risk mapping to identify communities that need early warnings and preventive interventions.

Why Leptospirosis is a Particular Concern

Leptospirosis is caused by Leptospira bacteria and is commonly transmitted through contact with water or soil contaminated by infected animal urine, particularly from rodents. Floods increase this exposure as people walk through contaminated water, clean flooded homes or handle mud and debris. The risk can continue after water recedes, when residents return to clean houses and remove waste.

Kerala has developed specific responses for this risk. The state’s health system uses doxycycline prophylaxis for selected high-risk exposures and has previously established dedicated “Doxy Corners” during disaster responses. It has also expanded early diagnosis: RT-PCR testing for leptospirosis is available through nine government laboratories, according to the Health Department.

The challenge is ensuring these measures reach exposed populations quickly enough.

Dengue and Diarrhoeal Diseases May Follow Different Timelines

Dengue presents a different risk. Heavy rainfall can initially wash away mosquito breeding sites, but as floodwater recedes, stagnant pools can remain in containers, drains and construction sites. These can become breeding sites for Aedes mosquitoes.

Kerala had already recorded 834 dengue cases in the first eight days of July, so vector surveillance will remain important as the flood situation evolves. Diarrhoeal diseases can emerge through another pathway. Flooding can damage sanitation infrastructure, contaminate water and disrupt food hygiene. Kerala’s 19,428 diarrhoeal cases in eight days provide a reminder that this risk exists independently of leptospirosis.

The state’s existing disease burden also includes Shigella. By June 23, Kerala had reported 241 Shigella infections, with outbreaks identified in Kozhikode, Wayanad, Thrissur and Alappuzha.

Influenza Adds Another Layer

Respiratory infections are less directly connected to floodwater but can become harder to control when people are displaced. Relief camps bring people from different households into shared spaces. Crowding and inadequate ventilation can increase opportunities for respiratory transmission.

Kerala recorded 661 influenza cases during the first eight days of July. The concern is about vulnerability. Children, older adults and people with underlying illnesses may be at greater risk when respiratory infections spread in crowded shelters and routine healthcare is disrupted.

The Health Emergency May Peak After the Flood

The most important lesson from Kerala’s previous floods is that the health emergency does not necessarily end when the water recedes. The immediate risks include injuries, drowning and direct exposure to contaminated water. Later, people face contaminated mud and waste while cleaning homes, stagnant water that can support mosquito breeding, disrupted sanitation and increased contact in temporary shelters.

Research shows that different infections can emerge over different time lags. For leptospirosis, Kerala’s experience suggests that the post-flood period can be particularly important. That makes the weeks after flooding a crucial test of public-health preparedness.

Kerala already has daily disease surveillance, district-level monitoring, leptospirosis testing and preventive protocols. The next step is to connect these systems more closely with flood-risk information so that authorities can identify potential disease clusters before hospitals begin seeing a large increase in patients.

India’s agrarian crisis is shrinking farmer incomes while driving up the cost of healthy diets, exposing deep flaws in the country’s food system and nutrition security.

When the figures are carefully unpacked, one thing becomes unmistakable: Indian agriculture is passing through a deep and prolonged crisis. The sector is no longer a reliable source of income, and government support has not reached farmers in the measure needed to restore profitability. The farmer who, a few decades ago, owned his own soil is today gradually turning into a daily-wage labourer. Of a farming family’s total monthly earnings, barely one-third now comes directly from agriculture; the remaining share, nearly two-thirds, has to be made up through government or private jobs, wage labour, or small enterprises. In other words, farming alone is no longer enough to run a household.

How India’s Agrarian Crisis Is Making Nutritious Food Unaffordable

What is more worrying is that, even as the sector remains under pressure, the number of new entrants is rising rather than falling — and most are joining not as landowning farmers but as farm labourers. As landholdings are divided into smaller and smaller fragments, income from farming declines rapidly, forcing families to depend increasingly on non-agricultural sources to survive. This is reflected in suicide statistics too: of the total agricultural suicides recorded in 2023, the latest year for which the National Crime Records Bureau has released data, more than half — at least 56.5 per cent — were of farm labourers. This is not a sudden trend; it has been consistent for years. Of the 10,786 farm-sector suicides recorded that year, 4,690 were landowning farmers or cultivators, while 6,096 were farm labourers — that is, workers who own no land in their name, hold no crop insurance cover, and have no support to fall back on if the season fails. It is precisely this group of daily-wage workers that has today moved to the very centre of the agrarian crisis.

A survey by the National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD) paints a similarly stark picture: over the past five years, nearly 30 per cent of farming families reported crop losses caused by untimely rain, pest and disease attacks, cyclones or drought, and 12 per cent suffered unexpected drops in market prices. Faced with these shocks, families were left with only two options — exhaust their savings or borrow from moneylenders. The reality is so stark that, per NABARD’s All India Rural Financial Inclusion Survey (NAFIS) 2021-22, covering the five-year window from 2016-17 to 2021-22, the average farming household is left with a monthly surplus of just ₹1,951 after covering its expenses — and it is precisely out of this gap that the cycle of debt is born.

The average debt on a farming household stood at ₹91,231, marginally higher than the ₹89,074 average for non-farming households. The Parliamentary Standing Committee on Agriculture, Animal Husbandry and Food Processing has said the situation demands close monitoring and precisely targeted interventions, so that farmers can sustainably bear the burden of their debt while continuing to invest in agriculture. The committee stated that the department concerned must ensure farmers do not get trapped in an unbearable cycle of debt, and that the schemes designed for them actually deliver benefits on the ground.

And this crisis will not stop here. A powerful super El Niño is taking shape, and weather experts fear it may disrupt the coming monsoon. Farmers already entering the new season in loss, and under the weight of debt, have little capacity left to absorb another shock. In this new era of shifting climate, providing farmers with a coherent, far-sighted policy framework is not a lofty demand — it is the bare minimum.

The Rising Cost of Nutrition

The crisis in the fields echoes directly in urban kitchens, and today the sharpest edge of inflation is falling on the ordinary person’s plate. In India, a nutritious and balanced diet is becoming more expensive every year, moving further out of reach for crores of families. According to the UN’s latest report, The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2026, the per capita cost of a healthy diet in India has risen by more than 48 per cent since 2017. The minimum cost of a daily balanced diet for an average Indian, which stood at $2.77 (PPP) in 2017, reached $4.11 in 2025 — a rise of roughly 34 per cent compared to 2021, when the figure for India stood at $3.07 (PPP). Purchasing power parity (PPP) does not depend on currency exchange rates alone; it also accounts for local prices of goods and services in a given country, and so more truly reflects the burden falling on an ordinary person’s pocket.

The average global per capita cost of a healthy diet has risen from $2.94 (PPP) in 2017 to $4.28 in 2025, an increase of nearly 46 per cent

This rise in prices hits poor and economically weaker families hardest, because the moment prices rise, it is nutrient-rich foods such as fruits, vegetables, milk and eggs that first begin disappearing from their plates. If a healthy diet continues to remain this expensive, the path to a balanced diet will become even harder for families already struggling with malnutrition. According to the definition set by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the World Health Organization (WHO), a diet can be called healthy only when it simultaneously provides the body with sufficient energy, essential nutrients, variety and balance — mere fullness of the stomach is not the criterion.

The global picture is not very different. The average global per capita cost of a healthy diet has risen from $2.94 (PPP) in 2017 to $4.28 in 2025, an increase of nearly 46 per cent. The situation among India’s South Asian neighbours is even more severe than India’s own. In Bhutan, this cost has reached $6.17, a rise of 49 per cent compared to 2017. In Bangladesh it stands at $4.59 with a 48.5 per cent rise, in Sri Lanka at $5.21 with a 35 per cent rise, in Pakistan at nearly $3.94 with roughly a 33 per cent rise, and in Nepal at $4.19 with a 26 per cent rise. In other words, India’s cost is higher than Pakistan’s but lower than Nepal’s, Bangladesh’s, Sri Lanka’s and Bhutan’s. Yet it must not be forgotten that in a country with as vast a population as India, even a small rise in cost can have a massive impact on the plates of millions upon crores of households.

There is, however, one reassuring point: the number of people worldwide unable to afford a healthy diet has declined from 297 crore (37.4 per cent) in 2021 to 269 crore (32.7 per cent) in 2025. Even so, nearly one in every three people in the world today still cannot afford the cost of nutritious food, and it is the African continent that is scorched worst in this regard, where 66.6 per cent of the population finds a healthy diet beyond reach.

It is also worth understanding exactly where the larger share of the cost goes. The greatest expense falls on fruits, vegetables, milk, eggs, meat and other fresh and animal-based foods, while grains such as rice and wheat remain comparatively cheap. It is precisely during the journey from farm to consumer — through processing, transport, storage, cold chains and wholesale distribution — that the bulk of the cost gets added. As much as 70 to 75 per cent of the total amount a consumer pays for their diet is spent purely within this middle chain. The result is that the farmer does not receive adequate reward for his labour, and the consumer too does not get produce at a fair price — both sides end up at a loss.

Taking the example of poor households in India, staple grains such as rice and wheat are easily available through government schemes or subsidised markets. But the prices of pulses, green vegetables, fruits and milk — the very foods that give the body real strength and immunity — have risen so much that they are slipping beyond the monthly budget of an ordinary family. The outcome is that even as malnutrition and anaemia persist in the country on one hand, the inability to afford nutritious food is growing on the other. This makes one thing entirely clear: merely supplying grain is not enough; the real test lies in delivering nutrient-rich components such as fruits, vegetables, pulses, milk and eggs to every plate at affordable rates. For this, irrigation, cold chains, research, food processing and the supply chain will all need to be strengthened, while also curbing the wastage of food.

The FAO has issued one more warning in its report: that tensions in the Strait of Hormuz and an effective El Niño persisting until the end of 2026 could together place additional strain on global food and fertiliser prices in the period ahead. According to the organisation’s Chief Economist, Máximo Torero Cullen, the real crisis facing the world is not a shortage of food but the rising cost of nutritious diets, and that boosting local production could bring this cost down significantly.

It must be kept in mind that if nutritious food keeps slipping beyond the reach of the ordinary person, the consequences will not remain confined to hunger alone — they will cast their shadow over children’s growth, women’s health, working capacity and the country’s overall economic productivity. This malnutrition will keep hollowing out bodies from within, generation after generation. Therefore, the goal before India can no longer remain limited merely to “food for all”; it must become “nutritious food for all.” Local production, a strengthened supply system and nutrition-centred policies have today become the greatest need of the hour.

The suicide of a farmer in the field and the vanishing nutrition from a child’s plate — these two events may appear separate on the surface, but their roots lie buried in the same systemic failure

Vanishing Diversity on Children’s Plates

It is said that the habits that take root on a child’s plate in early childhood go on to shape the direction of health for an entire lifetime. Yet today, essential components such as fruits, vegetables, pulses and dry fruits are gradually vanishing from the plates of crores of children across the world. This reality has come to light through an extensive study conducted by researchers at Tufts University and published in the journal BMJ Global Health. Analysing data from more than 1,200 dietary surveys conducted across 185 countries between 1990 and 2018, the study assessed the consumption, among children and adolescents from birth to nineteen years of age, of five plant-based food groups: fruits, non-starchy vegetables, starchy vegetables, pulses, and nuts and seeds. According to the researchers, these components are important not only for physical growth but equally for learning ability, mental agility and protection from many diseases later in life, and yet most children are eating far fewer fruits and vegetables than experts recommend.

The suicide of a farmer in the field and the vanishing nutrition from a child’s plate — these two events may appear separate on the surface, but their roots lie buried in the same systemic failure. The farmer does not get a fair return for his sweat, and the consumer does not get the nutrition he needs on his plate, and it is the chain standing between these two ends that keeps reaping the greatest profit. As long as this imbalance within the chain remains uncorrected, this cyclical curse will keep returning every year in a new form — sometimes in the shape of a farmer in the field, and sometimes in the shape of a malnourished child.

(The views and interpretations presented are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial position of EdPublica.)

“As soon as the monsoon arrives, fear spreads across the village. People panic because they have already seen what these rains can do. In 2023 and again in 2025, many families here lost their homes, farmland and orchards to monsoon disasters. The moment it starts raining heavily, everyone fears history will repeat itself.”

Het Ram, a resident of Siraj Valley in Himachal Pradesh’s Mandi district, pauses before adding a detail that has quietly become part of everyday life. Most households in his village now keep their important documents, first-aid kits, clothes, dry food, drinking water, ropes and tarpaulin packed together in one corner of the house, ready to be carried at a moment’s notice if disaster strikes.

“Without our documents, we cannot even claim government compensation,” he says.

Why Himachal Pradesh Floods Continue to Haunt Survivors

Het Ram’s experience is shared by families across many villages in Himachal Pradesh, where the monsoon — once welcomed as a season of abundance — has increasingly become synonymous with fear. With the first spell of July rain comes an unspoken anxiety that settles over entire communities. People’s eyes remain fixed not on the clouds but on the fragile mountain slopes towering above their homes. A spell of intense rainfall is enough to keep families awake through the night. Fluctuating blood pressure, panic attacks, insomnia and chronic stress have gradually become a routine part of life in the state’s vulnerable mountain settlements.

Psychologists describe this condition as anticipatory anxiety — the distress that emerges not after a traumatic event but from the constant fear that it may happen again. A study of disaster survivors in Uttarakhand found that repeated exposure to natural disasters leaves people in a permanent state of hypervigilance: interrupted sleep, startling at the slightest sound, and feeling anxious the moment it begins to rain had become routine for many of those affected.

‘I fear the mountain above my home may collapse’

For 56-year-old Chudamani of Sarpada village in Rampur subdivision, July is no longer just another month — it is a season of dread.

Whenever it rains, sleep deserts her. She spends hours sitting outside her house, her eyes fixed on the hillside looming overhead. A single fear keeps returning: What if the mountain gives way? What if everything is gone within seconds?

The fear has haunted her ever since the devastating flash floods of July 2024, when a swollen Samej Khad swept away both her two-storey house and her vehicle.

“Nowhere feels safe anymore,” says her husband, Chatar Singh. “The moment the rains begin, fear settles into our minds. Every spell of heavy rain makes us wonder which family’s home will be destroyed next.”

The scale of destruction behind the anxiety

According to the Himachal Pradesh State Disaster Management Authority, 2,108 people lost their lives during the monsoon seasons between 2020 and 2025, while property worth thousands of crores of rupees was destroyed.

The 2023 monsoon alone claimed 404 lives, left 38 people missing and forced more than 50,000 people to abandon their homes. A total of 2,546 houses were completely destroyed and another 10,853 suffered partial damage. Overall losses crossed INR 12,000 crore.

On August 14, 2023, a landslide in Shimla city killed 20 people. The following year, a cloudburst in the Samej area of Shimla district triggered flash floods that washed away 32 houses and claimed 36 lives. These recurring disasters across Shimla, Mandi and Kullu districts have left behind more than physical and economic devastation — every monsoon now revives memories of loss, uncertainty and the fear of losing loved ones all over again.

‘Not even a needle found after floods’

Alok Kumar of Sarpada village in Rampur embodies the depth of this trauma.

His ancestral home in Samej village was completely washed away in the 2024 floods. His mother and eight tenants lost their lives in the disaster.

“The flood was so devastating that not even a needle remained from our 21-room house,” he recalls. “I still haven’t recovered from that tragedy. Every time I hear about floods or landslides, the entire scene flashes before my eyes. We live in the mountains, so there is always the fear that another disaster could strike at any time.”

He says disasters have become an annual reality.

“For the last three years, something has happened every monsoon. It has increased stress and anxiety among almost everyone in the village. Even the elderly say they have never witnessed anything like this before.”

Despite struggling emotionally, Alok has never sought professional help. Like many others in disaster-prone regions, he considers such distress an unavoidable part of life in the hills.

What doctors are seeing

Mental health professionals in Himachal Pradesh say the psychological toll of climate disasters is becoming more visible, even though systematic evidence from the state is still lacking.

Dr Dinesh Dutt, a psychiatrist at Indira Gandhi Medical College (IGMC), Shimla, says climate change is directly influencing people’s mental well-being.

“Climate has a direct impact on mental health. After monsoon disasters, many survivors continue to relive the traumatic event. Distressing thoughts, memories and images keep recurring in their minds. Clinically, we recognise these symptoms as anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). We are seeing such cases in hospitals, and our assessments suggest that climate-related events are contributing to these psychological conditions. However, there is still no systematic research that conclusively establishes this link in Himachal Pradesh.”

He adds that the state currently lacks a comprehensive database documenting climate-related mental health cases.

The concerns raised by clinicians are echoed in scientific literature. A review published in Frontiers in Public Health (2025) found that sudden climate-related disasters such as floods, landslides and cyclones frequently lead to PTSD and acute anxiety, while repeated exposure to such events has been associated with depression, hopelessness and, in some cases, suicidal thoughts. Mental health experts believe a similar pattern is gradually emerging in the rural regions of Himachal Pradesh.

Children are carrying the burden too

The psychological impact of recurring disasters is becoming increasingly visible among children.

Mukta, a government schoolteacher in Rohru, says classroom behaviour has changed noticeably since the devastating monsoon of 2023.

“Children have become frightened of the rains. During heavy rainfall, some of them become unusually quiet. Since Rohru is an apple-growing region, many children also worry that their family’s orchards and livelihoods may be destroyed.”

Poonam’s ten-year-old daughter, who lives in Shimla, has also developed an intense fear of the monsoon. Their residential building was declared unsafe after a landslide last year, forcing the family to live with relatives for ten days.

“Since that incident, she has developed a deep sense of insecurity,” Poonam says. “Every time it starts raining, that fear returns.”

For teenagers, the consequences are often less visible but equally profound.

Ashish Dogra, a Class XII student from Ramnagar in Shimla, says the rainy season has transformed childhood routines.

“During the monsoon, no one goes out to play anymore. We stay indoors all day. We talk to friends on the phone, but after a while it becomes boring. Sometimes that isolation makes us irritable and angry.”

Psychologist Neelam Bali says children’s emotional responses are closely linked to the anxiety they observe within their own families.

“When children see their parents constantly worried, they internalise that stress. Most are unable to express their emotions openly, and over time the anxiety begins to show in their behaviour. It eventually affects their studies and overall school performance.”

She emphasises that parents need to encourage open conversations with children.

“Play is one of the most effective ways for children to cope with stress. If they remain cut off from outdoor activities for long periods, they are more likely to experience loneliness, irritability and anger.”

Dr Dutt adds that climate disasters affect children, adults and older people in different ways. “If survivors do not receive timely psychological first aid, the long-term health consequences can be significant.”

When landscapes become a source of grief

Natural disasters alter far more than homes, roads and livelihoods. They also transform people’s emotional relationship with the landscapes they have known all their lives.

When the mountains that once symbolised safety and belonging suddenly become a source of destruction, recovering emotionally is rarely easy.

Researchers describe this experience as solastalgia — the distress people feel when the environment they identify as home is damaged or transformed. Unlike nostalgia, which is a longing for a place left behind, solastalgia emerges while people remain in the very place they call home, watching it deteriorate around them. Over time, this distress can deepen into prolonged grief, anxiety and depression.

Shifting homes in search of safety

Discussions around migration from Himachal Pradesh’s hill districts have traditionally centred on employment, education and infrastructure. But a new driver is quietly emerging: the search for psychological security.

For some families, the fear of living in disaster-prone areas has become so overwhelming that they are abandoning ancestral homes for places they perceive to be safer.

Prabhat Chand, 47, a government school lecturer from Rampur, is one such resident. After the devastating floods in Samej, he decided to leave the area and build a new home nearly 17 kilometres away in Sarpada village.

“Most of the families affected by the disaster have moved elsewhere,” he says. “The flood was so destructive that the place no longer feels fit for habitation.”

Ruchi, who lives in Tutu on the outskirts of Shimla, also shifted to another rented house after repeated monsoon scares. Her previous home stood beside a seasonal stream, and every spell of heavy rainfall made her anxiety worse.

“Whenever I saw news reports of rain-related disasters, I became anxious. Watching the water level in the stream rise only intensified that fear,” she says.

Although she still worries during the monsoon, moving to a different neighbourhood has eased the constant panic she once experienced.

Mental health remains missing from disaster response

Himachal Pradesh has made significant progress in recognising the health risks posed by climate change. The state has adopted the State Action Plan on Climate Change and Human Health (2022–27) and established a Climate Change and Human Health Cell to strengthen public health preparedness.

The plan focuses on physical health, disease surveillance, healthcare infrastructure resilience, early warnings and logistics, but does not address mental health support or psychological care for disaster-affected populations.

While the Climate Change and Human Health Cell provides training to healthcare workers and Accredited Social Health Activists (ASHAs) on mental health and psychological first aid, experts say these efforts have yet to translate into meaningful support on the ground.

Dr Sanjay Pathak, former Director of the Himachal Pradesh Mental Health Authority, believes disaster management continues to prioritise physical rehabilitation over psychological recovery.

“Government responses after disasters understandably focus on relief and rehabilitation,” he says. “But very little attention is paid to what kind of psychological intervention survivors require. Unless mental health becomes an integral part of disaster response, people will continue to live with a persistent sense of insecurity.”

Dr Dutt points to another challenge: the severe shortage of trained mental health professionals.

“The frequency of disasters is increasing much faster than our capacity to provide psychological support. For now, community and family networks are helping people cope. But as those social structures weaken, the need for professional mental health services will become much greater.”

The policy gap extends beyond Himachal Pradesh. An analysis published by the Observer Research Foundation (ORF) notes that disaster management strategies in India remain largely centred on rescue operations, rehabilitation and rebuilding infrastructure, with mental health support yet to be systematically integrated into these frameworks. The analysis also found that psychological disorders following natural disasters are 40 per cent more common than physical injuries — underscoring the need to treat mental health as a core part of disaster preparedness and recovery.

What needs to change?

Both Dr Pathak and Dr Dutt agree that psychosocial care must become a standard part of emergency relief rather than an afterthought. They identify three immediate priorities: training schoolteachers to provide basic psychosocial support to children affected by disasters; strengthening the capacity of ASHA workers and frontline health personnel to identify and respond to psychological distress; and expanding access to counselling and mental health services in disaster-affected communities.

For a Himalayan state facing ever more frequent extreme weather, integrating mental health into disaster management is no longer simply a public health recommendation — it is a necessity.

As climate change continues to reshape the mountains, it is also reshaping the emotional landscape of the people who call them home. The landslides and floods may disappear once the rains recede, but for many survivors, the fear remains — returning every monsoon, long before the first cloudburst.

Raman Kant is a mentee at the Asian College of Journalism’s Climate Change Media Hub, supported by Interlink Academy, Germany.