Windhover Русский

Personal safety, wherever you are

Windhover warns — in time, and you specifically.

On 26 August a glacier collapsed in the Himalayas. Within thirteen minutes the ice flow wiped the border crossing between Nepal and Tibet off the map. The first alert — 679,295 messages — went out only thirty-eight minutes later, by which time the crossing was already gone.

As of now, the dead in Nepal are counted in the thousands. Among the missing are hundreds of foreigners, from nearly forty countries. And in every one of those countries, someone is still waiting by the phone for a call that will never come.

No one could have predicted the collapse. But where Windhover is already running, families learn about their person within minutes — not after two days of not knowing.

Windhover is always there — day and night — so that in the darkest minutes you are not alone. It reads warnings from official services around the clock, tells you only what will actually reach the place you're in — and keeps you connected to the people waiting to hear from you, so silence never has to be decoded.

Take Windhover with you

Windhover gathers information from 22 official services and delivers it where you will actually see it. Free. Clear. Always at hand.

Windhover is not an emergency service. In an emergency call 112 or the local emergency number — it is in every message we send.

26 August 2026, the Nepal–Tibet border

What thirty-eight minutes look like

  1. 08:37

    Seismic stations register a strong tremor and first classify it as a magnitude 4.4 earthquake. Specialists later establish that the cause was not an underground fault but a glacier collapse. The impact produced a seismic signal of magnitude 5.2 — the ground was shaken not from below, but by a blow from above.

  2. 08:50

    The flow covers 20 km in seven minutes — about 180 km/h — and destroys the Rasuwagadhi border crossing. Thirteen minutes have passed since the collapse.

  3. 09:00

    The flood forecasting service learns what happened by phone — a call from the Rasuwa district administration. The phone masts in the valley have already been destroyed by this point.

  4. 09:15

    First mass alert: 679,295 messages in one minute across four districts — Rasuwa, Nuwakot, Dhading, Chitwan. The technology worked flawlessly. It's just that by this point the border crossing had already been gone for twenty-five minutes.

  5. 11:20

    Only now does the automatic alert threshold trigger at the Malekhu gauging station: the water rose almost four metres between two ten-minute readings. The system was designed for rain-driven floods — it could not have seen the collapse coming.

The alert was late not because anyone did their job badly. It was late because the whole chain — from sensor to phone — was responsible for a district, for a region, for a country. And not one link in it was responsible for one specific person.

1,369 killed in Nepal
5,132 people listed as missing
587 foreigners among the missing — from 39 countries
519 people missing on the Tibetan side, another 43 killed. Among them 261 foreigners from 23 countries

Figures for Nepal are from a situation report by Nepal's Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Authority (NDRRMA) as of 9 September 2026; for Tibet, as of 6 September. The timeline follows official timestamps from Nepal's Department of Hydrology and Meteorology. Checked 11 September 2026. The count keeps changing: these are the figures as of the check date, not the final total.

Straight up and honest

No illusions. No delays.

Windhover delivers the signal to where you are.

A tsunami or a debris flow moving at twenty kilometres in seven minutes cannot be outrun by code on a smartphone. Seismological sensors register the threat first — within fractions of a second. But registering a tremor on an instrument and warning one specific person in a language that isn't their own are two completely different tasks. State sirens stay silent in the mountains, and local SMS alerts don't reach foreigners in time. Our job is to take that data from official services without delay and deliver it straight to your screen.

Windhover works only with verified facts. No system in the world can predict an earthquake or an avalanche hours before it happens, and anyone who claims otherwise is selling an illusion, not the real thing. What we promise is different: the moment a threat is confirmed by official instruments, you get an urgent briefing — in your own language, with the original source stated precisely.

On the day of the tragedy, saving people came down to just three steps that no outside service took. Respond to the threat without bureaucratic delay. Reach you personally. And immediately let your family know you're OK — before the region loses signal.

What you need for this to work. Windhover delivers warnings over the internet: mobile data or Wi-Fi. Where there is no signal at all, the offline country card helps — emergency service phone numbers, the consulate, and what to do in an emergency stay on the screen with no connection.

And to be even more honest

On a trip, problems rarely start with something big

The Himalayan collapse was an exceptional event. A cancelled train, a strike on the day of your flight, a street closed off in a city whose language you don't speak — these are quite ordinary situations that can ruin a trip.

And the most annoying part: in most cases, this is already known in advance. A strike is announced a week ahead. A road is closed the day before. A storm warning is issued that morning. But the information stays on a website you don't know about, in a language you don't read, and in a format that isn't built for you specifically.

What follows is not a made-up example. This is what Windhover saw in central London over three ordinary September days. Twelve Underground disruptions in a row: not a single earthquake, and each one someone's ruined day.

Windhover London, the City
🕘 What happened nearby — 3 days

🕘 What happened nearby — 3 days

  • • 11.09 09:43 — Metropolitan: Part Suspended (here)
  • • 11.09 09:43 — Metropolitan: Severe Delays (here)
  • • 11.09 09:43 — Piccadilly: Severe Delays (here)
  • • 11.09 09:28 — Elizabeth line: Severe Delays (here)
  • • 11.09 08:03 — District: Severe Delays (here)
  • • 11.09 07:43 — Piccadilly: Part Suspended (here)
  • • 11.09 07:43 — District: Part Suspended (here)
  • • 11.09 00:00 — Waterloo & City: Suspended (here)
  • • 10.09 20:10 — Circle: Severe Delays (here)
  • • 10.09 20:10 — Hammersmith & City: Severe Delays (here)
  • • 10.09 18:42 — Circle: Part Suspended (here)
  • • 10.09 17:50 — Hammersmith & City: Part Suspended (here)

For what's happening right now, use the "📍 What's around" button.

📍 What's around ✈️ My flight ✅ I'm OK 🆘 SOS

A real bot reply, captured on 11 September 2026 at 10:46. Line names come from London transport in English — we don't translate them, because that's exactly how they're written on the departure board where you'll have to find your platform.

PRINCIPLE ONE

Notice in time

Trouble on the road rarely starts with something dramatic. More often it starts with confusion. Why the train is delayed. Why a whole block is cordoned off. Why the locals are hurrying away from the waterfront, and you don't understand what's going on.

Windhover continuously analyses official sources: weather stations, seismic services, city transport networks and road departments. It tracks not some abstract situation for the country as a whole, but the specific corridor of your route — step by step, point by point.

We are also strictly honest about what territory we actually cover. People almost always read a blank phone screen as a sign that "everything is under control" — and that's exactly the trap safety services fall into. For Windhover, "all quiet" and "no data" are two fundamentally different states of the system. And on the screen, you will never mistake one for the other.

Windhover Kathmandu
📍 What's around

🟢 Kathmandu — landslide

That's according to the disaster management agency — about 7 km southeast of you. There's one more nearby, and it's weaker.

📡 9 services cover this area: this country's disaster management agency, travel advisories, and seismic networks.

Checked just now.

The portal publishes landslides only after they've happened: this isn't a warning, it's knowledge that the slope has already moved and the road beneath it may be blocked. No one, anywhere, warns about sudden collapses or glacial lake outbursts.
🔍 What exactly was checked
Windhover Istanbul
📍 What's around

🟢 Istanbul — all quiet

Nothing new. This is checked silence, not a blank screen.

📡 10 services cover this area: this country's seismic service, travel advisories, and seismic networks.

Checked just now.

🕘 Nothing happened near you in the last 3 days.

That doesn't mean I wasn't watching: 10 sources are watching over you, and all of them stayed quiet. /sources will show you exactly who.

📍 What's around ✈️ My flight ✅ I'm OK 🆘 SOS

Real replies from the working bot, captured on 11 September 2026 at 10:46 from live data. Not a mock-up, not a documentation example.

PRINCIPLE TWO

Warn in time

A watchman who shouts at every rustle stops being listened to by the third day. A watchman who stays silent once is never forgiven.

That's why Windhover weighs not the noise level around you, but the real significance of a threat to you specifically: how close the source is, when the data appeared, whether the coordinates are confirmed, and which service issued the report. If the water level in a river rises three kilometres from your hotel, the system will raise a signal. If a siren sounds on the other side of the region, your sleep stays undisturbed.

At night, the screen wakes up only for critical reasons. A "worth noting" message will wait until morning. A direct threat to your route or your life will not. Waking you for no reason is bad, but staying silent before a disaster hits is unforgivable.

And you don't need to keep checking a feed or refreshing a map. Windhover keeps watch on its own in the background, regularly scanning the situation around your coordinates — even while you're resting in your room with the phone face-down.

Windhover bot writes first

Something's come up near you:

• Strong wind (4 km away)

I'm still watching.

🌍 Nearby tremor: M5.1, 34 km from you.

Are you OK? Tap "✅ I'm OK" and your family will stop worrying.

Neither I nor anyone else can predict a tremor. But aftershocks are more common than usual after one like this — that's the only thing here that's actually predictable.

📍 What's around ✅ I'm OK
Windhover distant tremor

🌍 There was a magnitude 6.0 earthquake 180 km away.

At that distance it might have been felt — a swaying light fixture, creaking furniture. It might not have been felt at all: that depends on where you were and what you were doing.

If you felt it and you're OK — tap "✅ I'm OK", and your family will stop worrying.

You've been quiet for 14 h.

In two hours I'll tell your circle that you're not responding, and give them the last place you were. If everything's fine — tap this, and I won't disturb anyone.

✅ I'm here, all good

These are messages the bot sends on its own, quoted verbatim from the working code; the place, magnitude and distance are placeholders for the example. "Might have been felt," not "you felt it" — because only you know where you were at that moment.

PRINCIPLE THREE

Look after the peace of mind of those waiting for you

The hardest state to be in is not knowing. And most of the time, there's no signal not because something happened, but simply because the battery died in the mountains or the tunnel cut the signal.

One tap, and your family sees that you're OK. No long back-and-forth over roaming data, no reports, no anxious "text me when you get there." Just an instant status update, and peace of mind on the other end.

If you go quiet for longer than usual, Windhover will first quietly check in with you. Almost all false alarms are resolved right here — with a simple confirmation on the screen. If there's no answer, the app will itself notify your circle of trust, sparing your family the agonising hours of guessing and frantic phone calls. And at a critical moment, the SOS button will pass them your last confirmed coordinates — without a single extra word.

Windhover family reads this

🔔 Anna hasn't answered in 16 h.

This doesn't mean something bad has happened: most often the person is simply out of signal or their phone has died. This message was sent automatically — Anna asked in advance to have you notified if she goes quiet for a long time.

Last known location: Pokhara, Nepal
She was there 16 h ago.

✅ Anna reports she's OK.

Windhover 🆘 SOS
🆘 SOS

🆘 SOS

Call 100
ambulance 102 · fire 101
Tourist police — 1144, they speak English there. 112 doesn't work everywhere here.

WHERE YOU ARE — read this to the dispatcher:
28.21, 83.99
Location known to within a kilometre, updated 20 min ago.

They'll ask for your location first. They'll ask the rest themselves — stay on the line.

📞 Copy number 100 📋 Copy my location 🔴 Tell my family I'm in trouble

Both screens are quoted verbatim from the working code; the name, place and hours are placeholders for the example. The SOS screen doesn't go online for an answer: the emergency service numbers, the country and your coordinates are already stored in the bot — which is why it responds instantly, even where the connection is barely alive. The number is given as a "copy" button: Telegram has blocked direct dialling for every bot, without exception, and a link that silently fails to open is worse, in an emergency, than a button that always works.

Why you can trust us at all

A transparent map of sources

On a single screen, Windhover shows exactly who is watching the place where you're standing — and when each of them last responded.

If a service goes quiet, we don't pass that off as calm. We say it plainly: it's not responding. "No one is watching this area" is just as legitimate an answer as a warning, and it's more honest than a blank screen.

Windhover /sources · Kathmandu

📡 Who's watching the place you're in

  • ✅ travel advisories (Auswärtiges Amt) — 28 min ago
  • ✅ Nepal's disaster management agency (BIPAD) — 13 min ago
  • ✅ laws, visas and safety (FCDO) — 28 min ago
  • ✅ satellites that detect fires (NASA FIRMS) — 28 min ago
  • ✅ the UN disaster service (GDACS) — 13 min ago
  • ✅ air quality forecast (Open-Meteo) — 26 min ago
  • ✅ wave and wind forecast for the water (Open-Meteo) — 27 min ago
  • ✅ weather forecast (Open-Meteo) — 25 min ago
  • ✅ US Geological Survey (USGS) — just now

🌍 All 13 are working for other countries — their turn comes when you travel there.

  • ○ British trains, live departure board — not connected
  • ○ street crime by neighbourhood — not connected

If a source goes quiet, I don't pass that off as calm — I say that it's quiet.

Captured from the working bot on 11 September 2026 at 10:46. The number of services differs not because some countries matter more: some governments publish more, some less, and we show it as it is.

Real capabilities

Only what works today

Everything below works in the bot right now and has been tested on live data. Anything not yet finished isn't included here.

What's happening around me

One button, and you get the full picture for your location: natural hazards, transport, security, air, water. And exactly who said so.

NEW

What happened nearby — 3 days

The answer to "what did I miss" while you were asleep or travelling. The bot stays quiet at night on purpose, and this is the only way to find out what it saw.

NEW

An answer to the word "earthquake"

Ask with a single word, and get what has shaken the area in the past week, with magnitude and distance. Not a form to fill in, and not "all quiet right now."

NEW

A distant tremor, spelled out

"180 km away, magnitude 6 — it might have been felt here." Before, silence at that distance used to read as the bot being broken.

NEW

The document that gets you turned away without it

Add a flight to the UK, and the bot will tell you that you need an ETA authorisation, what it costs and how long it takes. And it will keep reminding you until it's done.

SOS and emergency numbers

This country's emergency service number, your coordinates spelled out for the dispatcher, and what to say. The bot doesn't go online for this — it answers even where the connection is barely alive.

"I'm OK" with one button

Your family finds out you're doing fine, without messages back and forth and without you having to explain.

A circle of up to three people

Three, not one: one person might miss it, their phone might die, they might be asleep — and the alert this whole thing was built for goes nowhere. You can see who's actually receiving you, and remove anyone you don't need.

If you go quiet

The bot asks you first, then tells your circle and gives them your last known location.

The sea: wave, wind and water

"12 m/s (force 6), waves up to 0.9 m" — as a number, not sailing jargon that, outside yachting, tends to be read the wrong way round.

Strikes and road closures

An announced strike, a closed road, unrest in an area — as part of the picture for a place, from UK and German foreign-ministry advisories.

How to start

Two minutes, and your route is being watched

  1. Open the bot in Telegram

    Nothing to install, no sign-up. Windhover lives in a messaging app you already have — so the message gets through even at six in the morning.

  2. Tell it where you are

    Just the name of a city or country, typed as text: "Istanbul", "heading to Nepal". That's enough to start watching the situation. If you want warnings to be more precise — down to the street, not just the city — you can send your location with one tap. Coordinates are rounded to the nearest kilometre before they reach the database, and only ever the most recent point is stored.

  3. Tell it about your trip

    A flight number or a screenshot of your ticket — and Windhover starts watching your specific points, not just the country in general.

  4. Add the person waiting for you

    One link, one tap on their end. You won't have to explain over the phone that you're alive ever again.

A signal of its own

So that danger does not sound like every other chat

Your phone chimes the same way for an advert, a work chat and a flood warning — and that is the whole problem. A sound you hear two hundred times a day stops meaning anything. Windhover can be made recognisable from the first note: the bot sends you its signal as a file, and five taps put it on this chat.

The bot cannot choose the sound for you — Telegram gives bots no such ability at all. So here is the exact path you walk. The tone applies to the Windhover chat only: everything else sounds as before.

  1. STEP 1

    Save the signal

    Press and hold the sound file the bot sent you. In the menu choose “Save sound” — that one, not “Save to Music”: the first puts the tone into your Telegram list of signals, the second merely downloads a file.

    ♪ Save sound
    ↩ Reply
    ⧉ Copy
    ↓ Save to Music
    → Forward

  2. STEP 2

    Open the chat menu

    The three dots in the top right corner, next to the bot's name. These are the settings of this conversation, not of the app: everything you do next touches Windhover alone.

    Windhover ⋮
    Top right, beside the bot's name.

  3. STEP 3

    Notifications

    In the menu that opens, the row “Notifications” with an arrow. It leads to the sound settings for this chat.

    ♫ Notifications ›
    ⌕ Search
    ✕ Clear history
    ? Help

  4. STEP 4

    Customise

    Among the rows about switching sound off, choose “Customise”. The neighbours read alarmingly — “Mute”, “Mute for 365d” — but the one you need is the one that leads to the settings.

    ♪ Mute
    ⏱ Mute for…
    ≡ Customise

  5. STEP 5

    Pick the sound

    On the “Custom notifications” screen tap the “Sound” row and choose the Windhover signal you saved in step one. Done: this chat can no longer be mistaken for anything else.

    Custom notifications
    A Show text on
    ♪ Sound windhover-alert-2-rising
    ~ Vibrate default
    ! Importance as in settings

  6. STEP 6 · OPTIONAL, BUT WORTH IT

    Let the warning be seen as well as heard

    On the same screen, lower down: “Popup notifications” → “Enabled” — the message appears over the screen rather than only in the shade. And if you set “Importance” to maximum, the notification fires even in Do Not Disturb. That is the one way through your phone's night-time silence, and the decision is yours.

    Popup notifications
    ◉ Enabled
    ○ Disabled
    New messages will pop up over the screen when you are not in the app.

If you have an iPhone

The path is the same in spirit, the wording differs: tap the bot's name at the top → Mute → Customise, then in the tones section choose “Upload Sound” and pick the file. The tone applies to this chat only, just the same.

Steps taken from a live phone on 13 September 2026 (Android, Telegram in Russian). Wording differs a little between manufacturers and versions — look for the meaning. On a computer Telegram cannot set a sound for a single chat at all: there one signal serves every conversation.

Your phone's silent mode overrides all of this. A signal of its own makes the warning recognisable, not louder than a muted phone. To find out whether a signal actually reaches you, use the bot itself — the “🔊 Test sound” button sends a test signal and asks what you heard.

Your data

We know exactly as much as we need to warn you in time

What it costs

Basic warnings are free

€0

no card, no trial period, no time limit

This isn't promotional generosity, and it isn't "free for the first month." It's the rule the product is built on: a danger warning will never become paid. Watching your location, an honest coverage map, SOS, emergency numbers, "I'm OK," and the silence alarm — all of it is free, and will stay free.

Right now Windhover is being tested with a small group of real people, and absolutely everything in it is free. What eventually becomes paid will be decided based on how that testing goes, not in advance. We'll say so plainly and ahead of time, and it will not touch anything listed above.

Where we are now

We're building this for our own

Windhover isn't being built "for the market" — it's built for the author's own trips and for the author's family. Twenty-two official services are already being monitored, on live data, and every change to the bot starts from a real situation, not a planning meeting.

Today Windhover lives in Telegram: messages reach everyone, immediately, with nothing to install. The app already exists too — it installs to your home screen and opens without a network: emergency service numbers, the consulate, and your home country's details stay at hand exactly when there is no signal at all.

Take Windhover with youOpen the offline app

Take Windhover with you — no searching when it counts.

Point your camera
opens the bot in Telegram

The app
Windhover — with you, offline

Windhover is not an emergency service. In an emergency call 112 or the local emergency number — it is in every message we send.

Write to us

A person answers, not a bot. Data requests within a month, as the law requires; everything else usually sooner.