Local weather change-induced glacier melting within the Shounter Valley, Pakistan, is inflicting flash floods and endangering hundreds of individuals.
The Shounter Valley in Pakistan held Kashmir, is usually described as ‘heaven on earth’. It’s famend for its majestic mountains, waterfalls, lakes and glaciers.
However now the opposed results of local weather change are more and more evident in these breathtaking landscapes.
Native volunteer Muhammad Luqman is deeply involved concerning the future “The speed at which glaciers are melting, I worry that if this glacier bursts, because it did in Gilgit-Baltistan final 12 months, and a flood occurred in Pakistan, 15,000 folks on this space could be at risk,” he says.
Floodwaters rise as glaciers soften in Pakistan
Flash floods in 2010 wreaked havoc on Shounter Valley, inflicting land erosion and in depth injury to crops and residential houses.
Residents of Domail Pine village witnessed the troubling penalties firsthand. They noticed flood waters rising quickly within the stream that flows close to their houses, carrying water from the towering glacier.
Muhammad Rasheed Mughal, a 75-year-old villager, recounts the impression of final 12 months’s flood, which washed away bridges, residential homes, and land.
“Final 12 months’s flood swept away bridges, residential homes, land and every thing. There was heavy snowfall within the mountains this 12 months,” he says.
“If the glaciers burst once more this 12 months and there’s a flood, the remaining village can be washed away. We now have nobody to depend on, simply sitting there with Allah’s assist”.
What number of glaciers are in Pakistan?
Pakistan boasts over 7,000 glaciers, one of many highest totals for any nation on Earth.
In line with the United Nations Improvement Programme (UNDP), by 2018, over 3,000 lakes had shaped resulting from melting glaciers within the Gilgit-Baltistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa areas of Pakistan.
33 of those lakes are thought of liable to flooding, posing a severe risk to over 7 million folks residing downstream.
Final 12 months, the nation skilled an unprecedented deluge and sudden monsoon rainfall. It resulted in one-third of the nation being submerged and claiming the lives of 1,700 folks.
Pakistan estimates floods have affected greater than 33 million folks, primarily in Sindh and Baluchistan provinces.
Flash floods and avalanches have gotten extra seemingly
One other research printed final week discovered that glaciers throughout the Hindu Kush Himalayan mountain ranges may lose as much as 80 per cent of their quantity this century if international greenhouse fuel emissions aren’t quickly lowered.
Kathmandu-based Worldwide Centre for Built-in Mountain Improvement warned that flash floods and avalanches would change into extra seemingly in coming years.
The supply of freshwater could possibly be curtailed for practically 2 billion individuals who reside downstream of 12 rivers that originate within the mountains.
Ice and snow within the Hindu Kush Himalayan ranges are an necessary supply of water. The rivers, which circulate by means of 16 international locations in Asia, present contemporary water to 240 million folks within the mountains and one other 1.65 billion downstream.
Watch the video above to study Pakistan’s melting glaciers.
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