The Kingdom of Bhutan is a small Himalayan country landlocked in between the India and the People's Republic of China.
For the most part very little natural disasters occur there but every so often the country is subjected to earthquakes, floods and landslides. In 2009 Bhutan earthquake was a 6.1 magnitude earthquake that occurred on september 21, 2009 in the eastern region of Bhutan. The epicenter was situated at 110 miles east of the capital Thimphu, in Mongar District. The tremors were felt as far as Tibet.
The climate is dominated by the monsoon, with a dry winter and high precipitation during June-September. Bhutan has a wide variety of climatic conditions influenced by topography, elevation and rainfall patterns. The great variation in rainfall within a relatively short distance is due to the effect of rain shadow but precipitation generally diminishes significantly from south to north.
Annual precipitation ranges widely in various parts of the country. In the severe climate of the north, there is only about forty millimeters of annual precipitation--primarily snow. In the temperate central regions, a yearly average of around 1,000 millimeters is more common, and 7,800 millimeters per year has been registered at some locations in the humid, subtropical south, ensuring the thick tropical forest, or savanna. Thimphu experiences dry winter months (December through February) and almost no precipitation until March, when rainfall averages 20 millimeters a month and increases steadily thereafter to a high of 220 millimeters in August for a total annual rainfall of nearly 650 millimeters.
Bhutan has also been known to have the happiest people on earth. The government is worried more about the gross domestic happiness than gross domestic product and this has made them a very successful country for their own purposes.
