Shaking up earthquake safety in Nepal with a folk song

Growing up in Jaljala, a remote village in western Nepal, Shiba Subedi was a bright student with a passion for extracurricular activities. He excelled in debates, essay competitions and poetry, but one interest stood above the rest: a deep fascination with Nepal’s folk melodies.

After finishing secondary school, Subedi pursued a two-year science degree at Prithvi Narayan Campus in Pokhara, a bustling city in western Nepal. As well as growing academically, he was drawn into the vibrant world of folk music in the local bars.

However, his father thought that pursuing music would ruin Subedi’s chances of having a serious career. Determined to change his son’s mind, he travelled by bus for five hours to Pokhara. “He stayed for four days, trying to convince me to give up music,” Subedi recalls. “But I was resolute.”

Dismissing his father’s concerns, Subedi continued his musical journey alongside his studies. In 2009, he wrote songs that brought him national recognition and commercial success, earning nearly 200,000 Nepalese rupees — a sum that, at the time, equated to roughly US$2,700 and was more than the average middle-class annual income in Nepal. “My father never questioned my musical pursuit after that,” he adds.

However, after 2015, when a disastrous earthquake struck Nepal, Subedi’s dual careers would become intertwined. At the time, he was pursuing a master’s degree in physics at Tribhuvan University in Kathmandu, but the disaster’s aftermath shifted his focus and the rest of his studies towards geophysics. Now a geophysicist at the Nepal Academy of Science and Technology in Lalitpur, Subedi combines his songwriting passion with an expertise in earthquake monitoring and analysis. He visits schools, educating students and teachers about earthquake preparedness, and uses his melodies to reach even broader audiences.

For his efforts, Subedi was honoured last November with the Judges Commendation in the John Maddox Prize for standing up for sound science and evidence. The prize is a joint initiative of the London-based charity Sense about Science and Nature.

A quake jumpstarts a career

In April 2015, when the massive 7.8-magnitude Gorkha earthquake struck Nepal, Subedi was on Tribhuvan University’s campus and witnessed a person die when the university’s gate collapsed onto their car. “It was a devastating scene,” he says.

Nearly 9,000 people were killed. Subedi heard about tragic but preventable deaths, such as one in Melamchi: probably following bad advice, a teenage girl who was standing in a garden ran back into her house during the earthquake to take cover under a table instead of remaining outside in an open space. Subedi began searching for ways to better prepare Nepalese society for future quakes.

That led him to earn a second master’s degree, this time in exploratory geophysics at the Paris Institute of Planetary Physics in 2016. Subedi’s master’s supervisor connected him with György Hetényi, a geophysicist at the University of Lausanne in Switzerland, to discuss pursuing a PhD in Hetényi’s group. However, Hetényi was hesitant. He recalls thinking at the time: “If he gets a PhD in a classical research domain and goes back to Nepal, then he will not have adequate instruments or resources.” Instead, Hetényi invited Subedi to work in his group while pursuing a PhD in educational seismology, focusing on outreach to students and teachers to raise awareness about earthquakes.

When Subedi enrolled in his PhD in 2018, Nepal’s primary and secondary schools had scarce resources for teaching earthquake science. Hetényi and Subedi co-founded the Seismology at School in Nepal campaign, showing teachers and students how to use earthquake sensors and teaching the basics of earthquake waves, energy levels and seismic activity. “If students can measure even small-scale earthquakes, it could spark their interest and inspire future scientists,” he explains.

There were some advantages to Subedi’s side career in popular folk music. First, his social-media connections helped him to quickly identify schools to participate in the campaign. Second, “people love celebrities”, he adds. “When I introduce people to the songs I’ve written and then explain my academic interests, they are much more receptive to my message.”

Shreedhar Dhakal, a science teacher at Shree Shiva Secondary School in Kawasoti in southern Nepal, has participated in the teachers’ awareness workshops. He recalls when he first started teaching students about earthquake safety drills — classic manoeuvres such as ‘drop, cover and hold’, meaning to drop to the floor, find cover under a table or cover your head with your arms and hold your position until the shaking stops — the parents complained. “They thought it was unnecessary,” Dhakal says. But over time, he says, they came to appreciate these efforts.

Making an awareness song

Until the school-outreach work, Subedi had never revealed his musical career to Hetényi. “I thought it was important to keep my academic and musical pursuits separate,” he says. “Otherwise, people might think I dabble in everything, and question my credibility.”

But during one of the teachers’ workshops, which Hetényi attended, Subedi invited a singer friend to provide some entertainment, and another attendee casually mentioned Subedi’s musical success to Hetényi.

“I was very surprised,” Hetényi recalls. But he immediately followed up with a request: “Why don’t you make a song about earthquake awareness?”

Subedi was initially dismissive. Hetényi remembers him saying: “No. Earthquakes are not a topic for a song. Period.”

Hetényi says he isn’t usually one to push, but after attending several teachers’ workshops in Nepal, he noticed how deeply participants engaged with the folk-music entertainers. He realized that songs, with their brevity and pleasing melodies, could resonate more powerfully with some people than could scientific papers or lectures. After some gentle persistence, Subedi agreed to give it a try.

However, translating complex academic terms into catchy, relatable phrases that can sync to rhythmic and repeated musical beats was no easy task. “For example, how do you explain plate tectonics to people with no formal education?” Subedi asks. There are no direct translations for such terms in everyday Nepali language. “If I used jargon, someone like my granny wouldn’t connect with it,” he adds.

Instead of using technical terms, Subedi’s song describes how the movement of rocks beneath the Earth triggers quakes. He embraces simplicity, crafting lyrics that are easy to understand and sing along to — an approach that ultimately captured widespread attention. For example, one verse states: “To this day, science has not determined when or how big an earthquake will be, or where exactly it will strike.” The song’s catchy refrain reinforces the message: “Just as you learn A-B-C, everyone can learn how to prepare to survive an earthquake.”

Subedi’s team wanted to shoot a music video for the song, using a school setting to engage students and create a ripple effect: the idea was that children and teenagers would watch the video and discuss the message with their parents and grandparents, spreading awareness throughout their communities. The music video highlights simple but crucial topics, including how earthquakes originate, building earthquake-resistant homes, how to prepare for an earthquake and how to behave during one.