In a devastating incident on Friday evening, a snow avalanche swept through the Shounter top area of district Astore in Gilgit Baltistan, resulting in the loss of at least 11 lives and leaving 13 others injured. The Deputy Inspector General of Police for Diamer-Astore Division, Tufail Mir, confirmed the casualties and added that a control room has been established in the district to coordinate rescue efforts and aid in the recovery of individuals trapped under the debris. While we expect that no effort will be spared on part of our authorities concerned to recover trapped individuals, the unfortunate incident is yet another manifestation of how worst Pakistan — that has minimal contribution to global carbon emissions — is impacted by the climate change. Such climate-induced tragedies have become more frequent in the country. Apart from massive flooding which wreaked destruction on a large scale, about sixteen glacial lake outburst floods linked to heat waves occurred last year. Gilgit-Baltistan sometimes referred to as the land of glaciers has frequently seen avalanches and snow landslides in recent years. Rising temperatures are rapidly melting glaciers in northern mountain ranges that according to the United Nations have resulted in formation of over three thousand glacial lakes.
According to experts flood and avalanches are becoming more common in Pakistan due to delayed snowfall in April instead of previous climate pattern of December and January. This late phenomenon does not allow layers of snow to get tightly packed and crystallised into solid glacial ice. Subsequently, the rising temperatures in May and June result in glacial melting. This clearly indicates that frequency of such deadly avalanches will only increase with passage of time and it is for our authorities concerned to be better equipped to immediately respond to such tragedies. While responsibility rests with international community to fulfil the pledges to limit global temperature rise to well below two degree Celsius, industrialised nations must come forward in a big manner and help vulnerable countries such as Pakistan to adapt to climate change. Pledges made at Geneva conference needs to be materialised at the earliest so that the country could also start work on building a resilient infrastructure. In fact Pakistan would require more financial assistance to better deal with the adverse impacts of global warming.
