Meet Nepal’s singing seismologist centring earthquake safety through music

This story appears in Huck 82: The Music Issue. Order your copy now.

On a sunny morning in a Himalayan schoolyard, a group of children gathers around a man singing a traditional Nepalese tune. The melody is familiar: bright, rhythmic, and alive. But the lyrics are not about harvest or heartbreak. They’re about tectonic plates, foreshocks, and why ducking under a table might kill you in Nepal. 

And the man leading the song is not a schoolteacher or folk performer. He’s Shiba Subedi, a 37-year-old geophysicist and one of Nepal’s few scientist-songwriters, who is using music to save lives. Subedi’s unusual path began in the wake of Nepal’s worst earthquake in recent memory. On 25 April 2015, a 7.8‑magnitude earthquake struck Nepal and neighbouring China, India and Bangladesh. Subedi was on the campus of Tribhuvan University in Kathmandu, studying for a master’s degree in physics. 

He saw buildings collapse, people screaming, and death without warning. The aftermath was even worse – nearly 9,000 people died, thousands more injured, and close to 2.8 million displaced. 

“It was really distressing to watch people die and not know what to do,” Subedi recalls. ​“What struck me later was how many people died because they followed the wrong advice. I saw people rush indoors to duck under tables and they didn’t make it out,” he laments.

• Read next: Graham Sayle opens up

Haunted by those memories and determined to help, Subedi later turned to what he knew: science and, interestingly, music. In a country where seismic threats loom large and scientific literacy remains low – especially in rural and marginalised communities – he began blending folk traditions with earthquake education. 

His goal is simple: to make complex geophysical concepts more accessible through song and storytelling, and dispel deadly myths before the next disaster strikes, especially for Nepal’s most vulnerable communities.

Subedi grew up in the ​’90s in Jaljala; a remote village in Nepal’s Parbat district where radios – rather than televisions – brought the outside world in and where folk songs (lok geet) were central to community life. Like many children there, he learned to balance academic work with chores and community life. What set him apart was an early interest in debate, poetry, and, most intriguingly, folk music. 

Looking back, Subedi vividly remembers listening to music on the radio as a pre-teen. ​“There were many national singers from our region. My father would bring home their albums,” he recalls. ​“That’s how I was introduced to folk music.”

By the time he finished secondary school, his voice had already begun to make waves in the local community. Subedi performed at small venues and attended a radio event in the country’s second largest city, Pokhara, in 2005. ​“There were some talented singers in my community who inspired me deeply. I wanted to be known like them,” he says. But his musical interests clashed with his family’s desires. Subedi had moved to Pokhara to pursue a degree in physics from Nepal Academy of Science and Technology, but continued to sing in local bars during his spare time. One fine evening, his strong-willed father rode for hours from their mountain village, in an attempt to talk his teenage son out of a path he didn’t understand. 

• Read next: Flying high with Nepal’s first ever female paraglider

“My parents were not educated, and they believed education was the only way to succeed. But I listened patiently to my father’s arguments, then calmly refused,” he says. 

Subedi’s rise in the folk music scene was swift. In 2009, while still in university, he wrote a series of songs that earned him money as well as recognition. Seeing how his son was able to support himself, his skeptical father began to see how music could coexist with a career. At the time, Subedi never imagined his two seemingly separate interests – science and music – would merge. That all changed in 2015.

Rather than continue studying physics in his home country, he changed course and went to Paris to earn a second master’s degree in Exploration Geophysics. From there, he joined a research group in Switzerland focused on educational seismology, a field that combines earthquake science with public outreach. He then moved to Switzerland for a PhD under Prof. György Hetényi and completed his doctorate in October 2020. The move wasn’t just academic. Nepal, one of the world’s most seismically active countries, needed more than just data. 

“I knew my research had to be translated into community education and awareness about earthquakes.”

During an international seismology workshop in 2019, his supervisor Hetényi learned that Subedi had once been a folk singer. ​“He was surprised. He asked me: ​‘Why don’t you write a song for earthquake awareness?’ So after some reluctance, I did,” Subedi explains. 

• Read next: Tension and togetherness at a rare Syrian hip-hop open mic night

Writing the first song wasn’t easy. Translating geophysical principles into something catchy and relatable meant leaving jargon behind. There are no everyday Nepalese words for ​“fault lines” or ​“plate tectonics”. So, Subedi focused on practical themes, such as how earthquakes are caused, what signs to look for, what to do before and after tremors, the kinds of buildings that are more likely to collapse, and how to respond. 

He kept the tone light and instructive. The melody followed the folk patterns his audience already knew. And while he didn’t initially plan to produce a video, he later partnered with a popular folk singer Pashupati Sharma to create one. Released in December 2020, the video was set in a school and featured children as they learned about earthquake safety.

The response was overwhelming. It went viral on YouTube and TikTok, getting coverage on radio, and even newspapers. The track, simply titled ​‘The Earthquake Awareness Song’, has more than 100,000 views on YouTube so far. ​“I also gained over 130,000 YouTube subscribers and 10,000 followers on other platforms. I know the message is spreading.” The target audience for Subedi’s songs includes those least likely to access conventional safety materials: rural communities, the elderly, people who can’t read, and those living far from towns and cities. 

But Subedi doesn’t rely on online views to gauge real impact. In schools across Nepal, students would sing the song’s lyrics in playgrounds. Teachers used the song in lessons. Some schools, inspired by the video, even built their own models to demonstrate the dangers of poor construction. In one, students organised an exhibition showing how a building’s strength – not just height – affects earthquake resistance. 

• Read next: Life in the aftermath of Turkey’s worst earthquake in decades

Today, Subedi’s work has reached dozens of schools across Nepal. He personally visits many of them, hosts workshops, conducts training sessions, and performs his songs. ​“When I visit schools, children ask questions about earthquakes. Some even sing the lyrics back to me,” he says. But the most meaningful impact, he adds, is ​“when students take those messages home and share them with their parents”,

Subedi says Nepal’s earthquake preparedness suffers not just from a lack of infrastructure, but from deeply rooted misconceptions too.

It’s common knowledge that folk tales and songs, globally, have always explained our natural world but not always accurately. ​“Many believe earthquakes are caused by angry gods. Others put more faith in animal behaviour than scientific data,” Subedi says. But he’s quick to add that the blame doesn’t lie with the public. ​“It’s not their fault as there’s a huge amount of misinformation, even in today’s tech-savvy world. That’s why we need to reach them with science.” 

One message Subedi challenges in his music is the widely promoted ​“Drop, cover, and hold on” advice, which is common in places like the United States and some European countries. While it may work in these places, where buildings are typically earthquake-resistant, following similar protocol in Nepal can be fatal.

According to data from Nepal’s National Planning Commission, most buildings in the country are not earthquake-resistant. During the 2015 earthquake, over 490,000 homes were destroyed and another 265,000 were damaged. An estimated 81% of the damaged structures were in rural areas. The vast majority, around 95%, were low-strength traditional mud-and-stone houses commonly found in rural Nepal.

“In the West, buildings are earthquake-proof. That’s not the case here,” he says, adding, ​“If people go under a table in a mud house, the house might collapse on them. So, we need context-specific strategies.”

Instead, Subedi relies on a more localised approach. ​“If you’re outside, stay outside. If you’re inside a poorly built house and on the ground floor, try to get out quickly. It’s not without risk but safer than being stuck inside,” he adds.

Despite his growing influence, Subedi doesn’t receive regular institutional funding. He is candid about the challenges: his work relies on occasional collaborations and in-kind contributions, rather than steady financial or institutional backing. Even within Nepal’s scientific institutions, disaster education is often underfunded and difficult to implement. ​“We have the knowledge,” he says. ​“But we don’t always have the support to share it.”

Subedi notes that while he hasn’t faced resistance from scientists or government officials, scaling up remains a major hurdle. ​“Should I receive national or international support, I would strive to reach many more people, whose lives depend on the information,” he says. 

But for now, he’s focused on what he can control. When asked which song he would sing for every household in Nepal, Subedi doesn’t hesitate: ​‘The Earthquake Awareness Song’. But if he could sing one personal favourite, it would be ​‘Ghamjasto Chamkilo Juna Hudaina’, a love ballad he wrote at 19 won several national awards, and remains popular today. ​“It reminds me of why I started music in the first place.”

Jyoti Thakur is a journalist based in Delhi.

Buy your copy of Huck 82 here.

Enjoyed this article? Follow Huck on Instagram and sign up to our newsletter for more from the cutting edge of sport, music and counterculture.

Support stories like this by becoming a member of Club Huck.