CHITRAL: Speakers at a seminar on Thursday called for making the community resilient to natural disasters to mitigate losses to the life in the aftermath of disasters to which Chitral was highly prone. The event was organised by Aga Khan Agency for Habitat (AKAH) here.

They said that 136 villages in Chitral were vulnerable to snow avalanches of which 33 had been declared intensively danger-prone and over a dozen others faced the glacial lake outburst floods.

They stressed the need for maintaining stocks of food and non-food items in such vulnerable villages that could be given to the affected people.

They also called for creating general awareness of disaster mitigation among the people.

They said that it was need of the hour to hold elaborate sessions with different sections of the civil society to impart training to them on the theme of adapting themselves to the changing scenario inthe wake of global warming.

It was stated that AKAH had maintained stocks in the villages vulnerable to the natural disasters so that mobilisation might be possible to the affected areas within no time.

Besides, it has also trained over 2,000 volunteers for emergency response of which 50 per cent were women.

Those who spoke on the occasion included deputy commissioner Khurshid Alam Mehsud, project director of Chitral University, Prof Badshah Munir Bukhari, AKAH regional programme manager Mohammad Karam and others.

Published in Dawn, October 12th, 2018