India’s Climate Disasters Are Triggering a Silent Mental Health Crisis

Pradeep Panwar’s, 32, life collapsed in a matter of seconds on August 5, last year, when a massive flood and landslide tore through Dharali village in the Uttarkashi district of Uttarakhand, killing more than 50 lives. His shop and taxi—his family’s only sources of income—were destroyed.

“Today, even six months after the disaster, I am paying not only the bank installment on my business, but also the road tax of my taxi which was buried in the debris and never found. I don’t know how to survive,” Pradeep told CarbonCopy.

Pradeep somehow endured the trauma. His 60-year-old mother Sarojini Devi, however, could not bear the shock. Within a month of the floods, she died by suicide, jumping into the river Bhagirathi.

“She was deeply shaken by the tragedy. The loss of our business and livelihood was too much for her to bear,” Pradeep said. 

Pradeep’s story is not an isolated tragedy. Across India, the growing frequency of climate-driven disasters are leaving behind not only physical destruction, but deep and lasting psychological wounds. While homes, roads, and livelihoods dominate disaster assessments, the mental and emotional toll remains largely invisible, poorly documented, and rarely addressed. This hidden crisis is becoming a defining feature of life in vulnerable communities, and experts say it is only going to become worse if the issue remains unaddressed.    

Surviving the Floods, Living With the Trauma

In June 2013, Uttarakhand witnessed massive floods in Kedarnath, a town located at 12,500 feet, killing thousands and devastating dozens of villages in the valley. According to official figures, more than 5,700 people died, including those missing. The disaster led to loss of property exceeding $ 3.8 billion (over ₹33,000 crore). 

Over the past 15 years, Uttarakhand has experienced repeated disasters, most during the monsoon season. The scale of loss—both human and economic— has been alarming. According to a Post-Disaster Needs Assessment (PDNA) report submitted by the Uttarakhand government, the state suffered losses amounting to nearly ₹15,000 crore in 2025 alone.

As global temperatures rise due to human-driven greenhouse gas emissions, the frequency and intensity of climate-induced disasters—such as heatwaves, floods, droughts, and storms—are escalating around the world, affecting millions of lives and ecosystems. All expert reports suggest that climate change acts as a primary driver of disasters. The Dharali tragedy is a grim reminder of a shifting Himalayan climate. Geologist Dr Navin Juyal, who has extensively worked in Himalayan region, told CarbonCopy after studying the Dharali disaster that historically, heavy precipitation was confined to lower elevations, but rising temperatures are now driving intense convective activity into the high-altitude interior.

“At Dharali, where slopes are precariously steep and laden with unstable debris, this vertical shift in rainfall is catastrophic. As global warming intensifies, these high-altitude cloudbursts will likely become our new, devastating reality. We must adapt; the mountains are no longer behaving as they once did,” Juyal told Carboncopy. 

Uttarakhand’s experience reflects a wider pattern. Himalayan states—including Uttarakhand, Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh, and Sikkim—have collectively faced more than 100 disaster events, largely driven by extreme rainfall causing landslides, flash floods, and glacial lake outbursts (GLOFs). At the same time, coastal states such as Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Odisha, and West Bengal have suffered repeated loss from increasingly intense cyclones. But what becomes of those who lose everything, but their lives?

Individual trauma beyond statistics

During the 2013 Kedarnath floods, a shop belonging to Lekhpal Bhandari, 51, a resident of Chameli village of Rudraprayag district, was swept away by the raging Mandakini River. He was left with no means of livelihood. The shock led to severe depression, followed by a brain hemorrhage that robbed him of his memory and speech. It took him nearly six years to regain his ability to speak. Bhandari says that time was like a nightmare for him. The stroke affected his memory, and he's in poor physical condition, leaving him unable to work. 

“I lost everything I had earned. The shock was too much for me to bear,” Bhandari told CarbonCopy. He remains unemployed.

Similar cases have been reported across the Kedarnath valley and other disaster-affected parts of Uttarakhand, where prolonged stress and unresolved loss have led to depression, anxiety, and suicide.

What experts are seeing

Prashant Kumar Roy who works with the Department of Clinical Psychology, Institute of Psychiatry-A Centre of Excellence, Kolkata, has spent many years in Uttarakhand studying the impact of disasters on the residents of these vulnerable areas.

“Hypervigilance was prominent leading to disturbed sleep. We also documented cases of survivors repeatedly checking riverbanks if the water level was rising, even in the absence of any official warnings. Sadness related to loss, along with anxiety about future disasters was a common story.”

Living in areas affected by recurring disasters places a constant psychological burden on individuals and communities, say experts. People remain in a state of constant alert, always anticipating the next flood, landslide, or storm, which exhausts the mind and body, says Roy. 

One of the most serious outcomes is Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), which is a mental health condition that can develop after experiencing or witnessing a life-threatening event. Symptoms include flashbacks, nightmares, intrusive memories, avoidance of reminders, emotional detachment, and heightened irritability or panic. In disaster-prone regions, repeated exposure prevents emotional recovery, allowing trauma to accumulate over time. 

Roy says children are particularly vulnerable. “Around 30% children experienced severe emotional reactions even four months after the extreme event, characterised by intrusive disaster-related thoughts, nightmares, poor concentration, hyper arousal (increased heartbeat, sleep difficulty, startled reaction) and avoidance of places that reminds them of the disaster,” he told the CarbonCopy. 

Recognition, but limited action

In 2024, at the 77th World Health Assembly, the World Health Organisation (WHO) recognised the impact of climate change-driven extreme weather events on human health. “...increasingly frequent extreme weather events and conditions are taking a rising toll on people’s well-being, livelihoods and physical and mental health,” says the WHO document.   

A study conducted after the Kedarnath floods also reinforces this link. “It was observed that about 58% of survivors had PTSD and severe levels of depression and anxiety were noted in 45.3% and 57% subjects, respectively. About 44% had perceived the disaster situation as a significant stressor,” it says. Despite such evidence, experts say mental health remains marginal in disaster planning. 

Dr Subhasis Bhadra, who is psychiatrist and Head of the Department of Psychosocial Support in Disaster Management with Bengaluru-based National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences (NIMHANS), says timely support is what makes the difference.

“Globally, diagnosable mental health conditions typically rise by about 3–5% after disasters, but in cases of severe loss—death, displacement, livelihood collapse—conditions like PTSD can affect up to 20–25% of people. Distress is often highest among the elderly and women, particularly when livelihoods are disrupted. Crucially, these impacts are not permanent. Where timely psychosocial support and recovery systems are in place, severe distress has been shown to fall from nearly 15–20% in the immediate aftermath to as low as 2% over time.”

Underestimating the pain

Dr Nikhil Jain of the Centre for Mental Health, Law & Policy, Pune. argues that disasters in India are underestimated not because their impacts are minor, but because they are framed as short-term emergencies rather than long-term psychological and social disruptions.

“Disaster response architecture… prioritises mortality counts, physical infrastructure damage, and rapid restoration of services,” he says. Mental health, he argues, is typically treated as an individual medical issue to be addressed through short-term counselling or helplines during the relief phase. 

This narrow approach ignores how psychological distress is deeply shaped by prolonged displacement, loss of livelihoods, debt, social fragmentation, and ongoing uncertainty — stressors that extend well beyond the health sector’s mandate. As a result, mental health remains disconnected from housing, compensation, and livelihood recovery, even though these factors strongly determine emotional wellbeing.

For over forty years, the National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences (NIMHANS) has been the vanguard of Psychosocial Support and Mental Health Services (PSSMHS) in the wake of India’s most devastating disasters. From the initial shock of psychological trauma to the grueling years of long-term rehabilitation, the institute’s work spans the entire spectrum of recovery.

As the national lead for the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare and the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA), NIMHANS mandate is to provide aid and build systems — from cyclone-prone coastal regions to disaster-weary terrain of Himalayas. Although It claims to work to restore dignity and harden emotional infrastructure against an increasingly volatile climate, the challenges still remain as the internal toll on the survivors is profound.  

As Dr. Bhadra, a veteran of mental health interventions in the Himalayan region, highlights the breaking point of traditional endurance:  “Communities in vulnerable regions like the Himalayas possess a resilience forged over generations. But when disasters become a relentless cycle and danger is the only constant, even the strongest souls begin to suffer in silence. They carry deep, invisible wounds that raw resilience alone can no longer heal.”

Reframing disasters as long-term psychological events, Dr Jain suggests, is essential to understanding whether recovery is truly complete — or merely declared so.

Gendered impacts and societal pressures

A lesser-known but deeply troubling dimension of climate disasters is the social pressure faced by women, particularly in rural areas where financial independence remains limited.

“In these hills, when landslides and floods take the men, young widows are left alone with children and unbearable responsibility. Social pressure tightens, money runs dry, and without skills there are no jobs. Farming no longer sustains us. Disasters don’t just destroy homes — they shatter minds and futures,” said a young woman from Rudraprayag - whose husband had died in the Kedarnath flood -, on condition of anonymity. 

Mukesh Semwal, a health activist who runs The Medical Service Centre, a socio-medical non-profit voluntary organisation in Garhwal says, “This problem is clearly visible in villages where rigid social norms persist. During the Kedarnath floods, many villages lost young men, leaving behind widows with small children. Women who were able to find employment or remarry managed to rebuild their lives, but many young women experienced immense mental and emotional stress.”

Ecological loss as a lived psychological experience

In Himachal Pradesh, floods in 2023 and again in 2025 devastated large parts of the state. In Pandoh village of Mandi district, Gurudev Saini watched his shop being swept away by the Beas river.  “My life has gone 30 years back,” Saini says.

Repeated exposure to ecological breakdown erodes emotional security and places sustained pressure on the mental health of communities living in vulnerable regions. Landscapes once seen as protective and nurturing are increasingly perceived as sources of danger.

Dr Subhasis Bhadra explains that as ecological systems break down, communities are pushed away from traditional ways of living into uncertain economic activities, creating deep stress and insecurity. In such conditions, exploitative practices—including trafficking and forced sex work—have been observed, disproportionately affecting women.

“These outcomes are not isolated social problems,” he said. “They are direct consequences of ecological collapse and disaster-induced displacement.”

What needs to change

If climate disasters are no longer rare shocks but recurring realities, responses to their mental and emotional fallout must fundamentally change. Experts say the first shift must be conceptual: mental health cannot remain an afterthought addressed only during the relief phase. It must be recognised as a long-term outcome of recovery itself, shaped by whether people regain stable housing, dignified livelihoods, social support, and a sense of control over their futures.

This means moving beyond short-term counselling camps and helplines towards sustained, community-based care. Mental and emotional distress in disaster-affected areas often does not present as clinical illness alone.

India coordinates mental health support through a multi-tiered framework led by the NDMA. National and State Mental Health and Psychosocial Support (MHPSS) Working Committees facilitate vertical, horizontal, and intersectoral collaboration between government bodies, ministries, and NGOs.

Strategic coordination utilises a four-level MHPSS Service Pyramid, ranging from basic psychosocial support in essential services to specialised clinical care. This is operationalised via three-year action plans and a centralised portal for mapping trained human resources and equipment.

The government says NDMA prepared its guidelines in 2009 and updated them in 2023 “with the aim to provide concrete actions and activities to be carried out through all phases of a disaster including preparedness, mitigation, response, recovery, rehabilitation, and reconstruction.”

In the Budget presented this year, the government announced plans to establish NIMHANS-2 in North India, addressing the current lack of a national mental health institute in the region. In February 2024, while replying to a question, the central government told Parliament that it is strengthening mental health support for disaster-affected populations through the National Mental Health Programme (NMHP), which is being implemented across the country. Under its District Mental Health Programme (DMHP) component, mental healthcare services have been sanctioned in 738 districts, with support provided to States and Union Territories through the National Health Mission.

The DMHP offers outpatient services, mental health assessments, counselling and psychosocial care, treatment and follow-up for severe mental disorders, essential medicines, outreach activities and ambulance services at Community Health Centres and Primary Health Centres. Each district also has provision for a 10-bed inpatient mental health facility.

In addition, over 1.6 lakh primary healthcare facilities have been upgraded into Ayushman Arogya Mandirs, where mental health services are now part of comprehensive primary healthcare under Ayushman Bharat. Mental health has also been incorporated into the National Programme for Climate Change and Human Health launched by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare.

Despite the government’s assertion in Parliament that mental health support systems are in place for disaster victims, the effort remains largely confined to policy documents, with little evidence of impact on the ground. Survivors of recent disasters say essential mental healthcare services were conspicuously absent when they were needed most. 

Panwar, whose mother died by suicide following severe psychological trauma after the Dharali disaster, said no mental health professional or support mechanism was available in the aftermath. 

Roy admits this gap and highlights the concept of Look, Listen, Link (LLL) approach, which is a basic form of psychological first aid (PSA) designed for use during and after crises. It focuses on early, humane support rather than clinical treatment.

Research has shown that when the LLL approach is used, there is a reduced rate of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), less severe trauma reaction and people tend to bounce back more quickly. Since the mental stress and illness surfaces through exhaustion, irritability, substance use, family conflict, chronic physical complaints, and declining ability to work. Addressing this requires frontline workers — ASHAs, Anganwadi workers, teachers, panchayat representatives, self-help groups — to be trained to recognise distress early and respond with empathy, referral pathways, and social support, not stigma or dismissal, say experts.

Equally critical is integrating mental health into non-health sectors. Housing security, timely compensation, debt relief, livelihood restoration, and social protection are not just economic interventions — they are powerful mental health measures. Delays, exclusions, and bureaucratic uncertainty actively deepen psychological harm. Disaster recovery must therefore treat emotional wellbeing as a marker of successful rehabilitation, not merely the rebuilding of assets.

Long-term monitoring is essential. Mental health impacts often surface months or years after disasters, once attention has shifted elsewhere, according to experts. Routine follow-ups, community check-ins, and local data collection can help identify emerging distress and guide course correction, say experts. This requires dedicated budgets, clear institutional responsibility, and accountability that extends beyond the emergency phase.

Dr Jain says mental health must be embedded into non-health recovery actions, rather than confined to the health sector. He suggests that livelihood restoration programmes, housing rehabilitation, and compensation schemes include psychosocial vulnerability criteria, such as widowhood, single-woman households, disability, or repeated displacement. 

“Policymakers should introduce simple, routine mental health monitoring as part of disaster recovery reviews. The absence of data allows chronic distress to remain invisible. A feasible step would be to integrate brief mental health and wellbeing indicators [for example, screening questions for depressive symptoms, alcohol misuse, and suicidal ideation] into post-disaster household surveys and primary care follow-ups,” He said. 

Finally, communities must be placed at the centre of healing. Collective spaces for grieving, remembrance, mutual support, and rebuilding social ties are as vital as clinical services. Cultural practices, peer networks, and local leadership help restore the sense of belonging and agency that disasters violently disrupt.

As climate change intensifies floods, heatwaves, cyclones, and droughts, the psychological toll will increasingly determine whether communities recover or fracture. The challenge is not only treating trauma, but building recovery systems that reduce uncertainty, restore dignity, and rebuild trust. Without this shift, the emotional costs of climate disasters will continue to accumulate long after the headlines fade.

(Author would like to thank to Gajendra Rautela in Rudraprayag for his inputs in this article)