ACCORDING to recent media reports, the flood caused by a glacial outburst has wreaked havoc in Chitral’s Golen valley. The event prompted people to seek help in a bid to move to safer places.

The flood washed nearly 8km of roads linking the valley with the rest of the district. The gushing water has inundated many villages in the area as well as damaged the water supply to nearby areas. Besides, 500 dwellers of the valley have been cut off from the rest of the country.

Pakistan, being the seventh most vulnerable country to climate changes in the world, is heading towards an increased frequency and intensity of extreme weather events which include frequent floods, Glacial Lake Outburst Flood (GLOF) and droughts.

Climate change has not only triggered the extreme weather events, but also brought uncertainties in the behaviour of certain weather phenomena. Presently, the country is facing a critical gap in knowledge of hydrological forecasting, risk mapping and disaster prevention planning. Mountain communities living in the proximity of glacial lakes and glacier-fed rivers are particularly at risk, as they live in remote and marginalised areas and depend heavily on fragile eco-systems for their livelihoods.

There is a need to identify potential GLOFs in the country’s northern areas to check of the growing risks associated with these GLOFs. Besides a formulation of flood hazard mapping, flood evacuation plans, disaster mitigation measures and resilient flood control policies may be put in place to save the vulnerable communities from devastation in future.

Faraz Khan

Peshawar

Published in Dawn, July 15th, 2019