Climate change poses flood threat in Pakistan

Editor's note: In this weekly feature China Daily gives voice to Asia and its people. The stories presented come mainly from the Asia News Network (ANN), of which China Daily is among its 20 leading titles.

In the picturesque valley of Golen, located over 20 kilometers northeast of Chitral city in Pakistan, summer once unfolded in all its resplendence. Visitors 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 of ice 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 108MW Golen Gol Hydropower Project, plunging the district into darkness for several days. The very next year, Golen experienced another glacial lake outburst flood, or GLOF.

With over 80 potentially dangerous glacial lakes dotting the region, communities in the Hindu Kush mountain ranges live in fear of advancing, unfrozen glaciers.

In July this year, as rain fell over the valley, the villagers endured a sleepless night. Safia Bibi, a resident of Golen, told Dawn newspaper 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 neighboring 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.

Figures released by the Pakistan Space and Upper Atmosphere Research Commission, or Suparco, on its "Space4Climate" portal paint a worrying picture for millions living across the Hindu Kush.