Afridi calls for plan to rescue Hunza people

The News - Federal Minister for Environment Hameedullah Jan Afridi on Wednesday directed the concerned authorities to finalise emergency plan for rescue of people, who are at high risk due to blockade of Hunza River, as a result of large scale landslide.

While chairing a follow up meeting along with Minister for Information and Broadcasting Qamar Zaman Qaira, he asked the concerned officials to find out ways and means to come out of critical situation aroused after Hunza River was blocked by a 2 kilometre wide and 380 feet high avalanche slipped into it at Ataabad on January 04.

Representatives of Wapda, FWO, ERRA, Sparco, experts from other government and civil society organisations, Secretary Ministry of Environment Javed Malik, Additional Secretary Kamran Ali Quershi, DG Environment Javed Ali Khan and other officials of the environment ministry also attended the meeting.

Giving detailed briefing about situation of landslide in Attaabad, Gilgit-Baltistan a representative of FWO highlighted several aspects of the lake with reference of consultations, survey and decisions made by the organisation. He said that FWO has taken various initiatives and entire work would hopefully be completed by end of April. 

Representative of Sparco also gave presentation in which he briefed about landslide situation and detailed analysis about the area and informed that the situation of is being monitored on daily basis. The participants of the meeting urged district and local administration to analyse and assess the issue and make all possible safety arrangements. Minister for Information Qamar Zaman Qaira asked FWO to make special arrangements to work day and night so that situation may be controlled well in time. During the meeting it was decided that FWO should continue its work with high spirits and make all possible arrangements to complete the task as soon as possible.

The minister for environment said that the basic aim of the meeting was to develop better understanding among the district government and other related departments to mobilise their activities in this regard. 

It is pertinent to mention here that first meeting was held yesterday in which the federal minister was briefed about landslide situation at Attaabad, Gilgit-Baltistan. The participants gave presentations on the occasion and highlighted different aspects of this sensitive issue. The lake level is currently rising at 0.6 m per day. It was observed that about 25,000 populations would be cut off from the downstream communities in case of an outburst. Moreover, if such an event occurs, there is the potential for a large flood wave to travel downstream as far as Terbela Dam. It would greatly endanger the downstream population and could cause substantive damage to infrastructure downstream, and the impact of the flood will pose problems in terms of livelihoods and welfare.

Chief Secretary and Home Secretary of Gilgit-Baltistan informed about details of currently on-going efforts during the meeting. On this occasion, different aspects for the construction of spillways were raised. Likewise, matters related to relocation of affected population, monitoring and alert systems, provision of funds, food, medicines and health care facilities and other emergency arrangements were shared by the participants.