IN THE picturesque valley of Golen, located over 20km northeast of Chitral city, summer once unfolded in all its resplendence. Visitors from across the district would flock to Golen during the warmer months to enjoy its cool mountain air, try their hand at trout fishing, and marvel at its lush green meadows Yet, in recent years, that once-bountiful summer has become a source of anxiety for Golen natives.
The cause lies in the glaciers, those primordial agglomerations ofice that had stood sentinel over the valley for centuries, which are now melting at an alarming rate and forming large, unstable lakes in their wake.
On the evening of July 7, 2019, one such glacial lake burst its banks and ravaged the valley, destroying homes and orchards, damaging the headworks of the 108MW Golen Gol hydropower project, plunging the district into darkness for several days.
The very next year, Golen experienced another glacial lake outburst flood (Glof).
Last week, as rain fell over the valley, the villagers endured a sleepless night. Safia Bibi, a resident of Golen, told Dawn that terror gripped them when the rain began. ‘Initially we were terrified,’ she recounted, ‘but later, when the men told us it was too cold and that we should not fear a flood from these clouds, only then did our frayed nerves calm.
Safia remembers all too well what happened in 2020, when she had to make a dash for safety, clutching her one-year-old daughter in the pouring rain as a Glof carrying huge boulders and debris descended on her village.
A portion of her under-construction home was badly damaged, and a few months later, her husband purchased land in a neighbouring village to relocate, due to constant threat of Glofs in their native area.
But Golen is not unique, and other remote valleys across the Hindu Kush are grappling with the same dilemma.
Their communities, long ensconced in geographical remoteness, lived in harmony with nature for centuries. Now, extreme weather has thrust them onto the front lines of an unfolding climate catastrophe.
131 ‘potentially dangerous’ lakes Figures released by the Space and Upper Atmosphere Research Commission(Suparco)onits’SpaceforClimate’ portal paint a worrying picture for millions living across the Hindu Kush.
The agency’s June 5 update recorded24 unfrozenglaciallakesinnorthern Pakistan, with 15 in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa 10 of them in Upper and Lower Chitral, three in Swat, and one in Lower Dir.
By July 2, that number had nearly doubled to 40, with Suparco noting that most lakes were concentrated in Chitral, Upper Dir and Swat. Theagency said it is regularly monitoring Potentially Dangerous Glacial Lakes (PDGLs) via satellite imagery to support early warning and preparedness for Glof hazards, drawing on a combined list of 131 PDGL locations supplied by the Provincial Disaster Management Authorities (PDMAs) of KP and Gilgit-Baltistan and Wapda’s Glacier Monitoring and Research Centre.
‘As expected with rising summer temperatures, the number of unfrozen glacial lakes is increasing... indicating accelerated seasonal melting, Suparco said, adding that most unfrozen lakes remain within their previously recorded maximum extents.
A lake becomes a greater concern, it noted, when its water extent exceeds historical highs, since this can signal increased storage and higher risk of moraine dam instability. The agency urged authorities to maintain heightened preparedness in downstream valleys given the continuing temperature rise.
Separately, data from KP’s Provincial Disaster Management Authority (PDMA) shows 63 Glof-vulnerable lakes and 21 potentially dangerous ones spread across five districts: nine vulnerable sites in Chitral(Upper and Lower), 18 in Upper Dir, 31 in Swat, and five in Upper Kohistan. All 21 potentially dangerous lakes are confined to Upper and Lower Chitral.
‘Especially vulnerable’ Chitral-based glacier researcher Hamid Ahmed Mir, who has visited many of these sites, told Dawn that the region’s glaciers are unusually vulnerable because of their small size. With the exception of Tirich-Concordia and Chiantar the latter feeding the Kabul River nearly all Hindu Kush glaciers are small, making them highly sensitive to temperature spikes.
These ‘water towers’ are likely to assume even greater importance over the coming years as the water war between India and Pakistan intensifies.
He also pointed to steep slope gradients and high seismic activity, noting five to six fault lines run beneath Chitral alone, alongside a high frequency of minor earthquakes.
Much of the region’s development has been unplanned, often ignoring its fragile ecosystem and lacking proper risk assessments or environmental impact studies. For example, he cited the use of explosives to dig the three-kilometre headrace tunnel for the Golen Gol hydropower project, inaugurated in 2018 two years before a major Glof struck the valley.
KP PDMA Director General Arifullah Awan told Dawn the provincial government was pursuing both mitigation and adaptation strategies to secure the region against climatic threats. At least 85 early warning systems, rain gauges and other sensors have been installed across Lower and Upper Chitral, Upper Dir, Swat and Upper Kohistan with support from the United Nations Development Programme.
In addition, community-based disaster risk management committees including union council secretaries and local members have been formed, with alert times ranging from 20 to 35 minutes.
A detailed version of this article can be accessed on Dawn.com