Volcanoes Near Nepal
Nepal has no volcanoes, active or dormant. This is because the Himalayas are formed by convergent collision, not subduction or a divergent boundary. Therefore, the only way volcanoes could be formed is by heat which is less common, and so there are very few volcanoes in the whole Himalayan region. The nearest volcanoes to Nepal are in western China and Myanmar. China has likely extinct volcanoes and the others are either dormant or have “normal” amount of activity. At least 4 have been active in the past few hundred years. The last time there was an eruption was in 1951 which was the Kunlun volcano, a pyroclastic cinder cone, so one of the safer ones. The most prominent volcano in Myanmar is dormant or has “normal activity” - hasn’t erupted since at least the 1600s. (Source)
Since these nearby volcanoes are cinder cones, the likelihood of Nepal being affected by the ash is relatively low. They do not have any specific protections in place for volcanoes.
China does have many protections in place even though they have a relatively low hazard. They have the National Active Volcanic Observatory Network in place to monitor activity. There are six observatories that do seismic activity monitoring, land surface monitoring, and gas emission monitoring. They have drawn up zoning maps for the most threatening volcanoes. They do focus mostly on their most active volcanoes and tend to not pay as much attention to the others.
https://www.lyellcollection.org/doi/abs/10.1144/sp510-2020-62
Very complete and interesting reflection!
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