Flooded with memories of floods

One July afternoon in Gaur, after weeks of drought, the long-awaited rain finally arrived. Children were splashing in puddles, laughing and dancing with their friends.

But while rain in the plains brings relief, fear settles in when it pours in the mountains to the north for too long. That is when the floods are unleashed.

Madhes Province suffered a prolonged drought in June and July — wells went dry, paddy fields were desiccated, and parts of the Tarai suffered a cholera outbreak because of contaminated water.

When the monsoon rains finally came last week, it arrived with a vengeance. Aside from the physical scars of droughts and floods, these weather extremes also leave scars that are less visible: in the minds and mental well-being of residents here.

Gaur is the capital of Rautahat district, close to the border with India. It is prone to chronic floods because it is astride the confluence of two rivers: the Bagmati and the Lalbakaiya. People here still remember the devastating floods of August 2017 when 70% of Rautahat was under water as both rivers overflowed their banks.

Weather extremes caused by climate change combined with poorly engineered road embankments, blocked drainage basins, sand mining along rivers, and settlements along floodplains have increased the death and destruction.

Floods are also exacerbated by flood control levees across the border in India and improper sluice gates that disrupt the rivers’ natural drainage. This causes floodwaters to back up, submerging settlements on the Nepal side.

This past week, Rautahat received up to 330mm of rain in 24 hours — the highest in Nepal. Gaur was once again completely inundated.

As before, people found themselves alone with little to no external support at the time of crisis.

SURVIVAL MODE

Aside from the physical impacts of floods, people suffer anxiety spikes, their decision-making falters as the brain enters survival mode. Fight, flight, or freeze becomes the norm, often leaving people unable to decide what to do when clarity is most needed.

Nighttime floods are especially perilous: with power out and darkness setting in, one’s own village becomes a maze. While a few community buildings serve as temporary shelters, reaching them is often impossible.

“At such times, you don’t even know where to get out from or how to escape,” a woman from Rajdevi told us. “There’s only my father-in-law at home, so we face the dilemma of whether he should focus on saving our belongings or the people and on top of that, we don’t know how to swim.”

For generations, communities have relied on men’s decision-making even during disasters. But with most men away for work, villages are left predominantly with women and elderly men.

This makes floods are as much a social crisis as a natural one, especially in a society where roles and responsibilities are gendered. Women face heightened stress managing childcare, domestic duties, household suppression and food scarcity, compounded by gender-based violence which is prevalent in the region.

As for men, they feel intense pressure to provide and protect their family. When they cannot do that in situations like a flood, feelings of guilt, shame and failure can emerge, affecting their well-being. Those who survive face nights with or without shelter, swarmed by mosquitoes and struggling with food scarcity.

“We survive on one day’s worth of roti for days when the flood comes, there are no vegetables, no firewood or gas to cook,” the woman added.

For many families, daily subsistence is already fragile, and floods only deepen hunger and hardship, heightening stress, anxiety, and psychological trauma, especially among caregivers and children. Malnutrition further intensifies emotional strain and long-term mental health risks.

Marginalised communities, particularly Dalits, bear the heaviest burden yet are often the most neglected. During the 2017 floods, around 40 Dalit families were displaced from their settlements, some forced to live under open skies. Some 15% of Rautahat’s population of 700,000 is Dalit.

Many were excluded from relief distributions or discouraged from sharing shelters with other communities due to entrenched caste-based discrimination. For these families, floods are not just a disaster but an emotional scar. Dalit women face double discrimination because of caste and gender, fostering a deep sense of abandonment, helplessness, shame, and isolation.

In Rautahat, where most families live off the land, the flood undos years of labour and livelihood. When fertile fields or blooming crops submerge and fish ponds are washed away, families lose not only their income but their sense of stability.

Agriculture here is more than an occupation, it is tied to identity, dignity, and hope. Repeated crop failure, mounting debt, and uncertainty about the next harvest often lead to anxiety, sleeplessness, and hopelessness, which are silent stressors of Nepal’s agricultural belt.

During these crises, villagers rely heavily on family, neighbours, and the limited boats available to cross rivers. Local government responses have often been delayed, and with roads cut off, help arrives late, if at all. That delay breeds distrust and helplessness, deepening the psychological toll long after the waters recede.

The people of Gaur and across Rautahat do not have the capacity to deal with aftermath mental issues from the flood as access to such care remains limited. Most cases are often referred outside the district to Kathmandu and Birganj or even across the border to Patna and Delhi.

Locals do not trust existing mental health units, they also feel unheard and unsupported. The government provides free psychiatric medicines but they should focus on establishing competent, well equipped mental health institutions with an adequate number of professionals for regular access and strong continuity of care for effective recovery.

As floods continue to test the resilience of Rautahat’s people, the need for proper anticipatory action grows ever more urgent. Preventing loss of life and property must go hand in hand with protecting the community’s mental well-being.

From a psychosocial perspective, expanding initiatives like giving Psychosocial First Aid training and projects like Sajag Samaj, an anticipatory action project launched in April 2025 can make a real difference. They help communities prepare before disaster strikes, fostering coping skills, awareness, and collective resilience.

At the same time, the government and local authorities must strengthen mental health support within disaster response plans, build infrastructures that reduce flood risks and safeguard livelihoods, and ensure that disaster relief is inclusive reaching Dalits, women, and other marginalised groups who are too often left behind.

Anek Rajbhandari is program and communication intern at the Institute of Himalayan Risk Reduction.