ISLAMABAD: In the picturesque valley of Golen, more than 20km northeast of Chitral city, summer once unfolded in all its splendour. Visitors from across the district 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 residents.
The cause lies in the glaciers — primordial agglomerations of ice that have stood sentinel over the valley for centuries but are now melting at an alarming rate, forming large and 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 and damaging the headworks of the 108MW Golen Gol hydropower project. The disaster plunged the district into darkness for several days.
The following year, Golen experienced another glacial lake outburst flood (Glof).
With more than 80 potentially dangerous glacial lakes dotting the region, communities across the Hindu Kush are living with the growing threat posed by melting glaciers and unstable glacial lakes.
Last week, as rain fell over the valley, villagers endured a sleepless night. Safia Bibi, a Golen resident, told Dawn that terror gripped them when the rain began.
“Initially we were terrified,” she said. “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 flee to safety, clutching her one-year-old daughter as a Glof carrying huge boulders and debris descended on her village.
Part of her under-construction home was badly damaged. A few months later, her husband purchased land in a neighbouring village so the family could relocate, fearing the constant threat of Glofs in their native area.
But Golen is not unique. Other remote valleys across the Hindu Kush are grappling with the same dilemma.
Communities that lived in harmony with nature for centuries are now finding themselves on the front lines of an unfolding climate crisis — one in whose making they have played little role and to which they have contributed virtually nothing.
As climate change wreaks havoc across the globe, unleashing unprecedented consequences even in some of the planet’s most pristine and remote corners, its impact is especially pronounced in the Hindu Kush, where communities have long lived alongside rugged and unforgiving terrain.
Figures released by the Space and Upper Atmosphere Research Commission (Suparco) through its SpaceforClimate portal paint a worrying picture for millions living across the Hindu Kush.
The agency’s June 5 update recorded 24 unfrozen glacial lakes in northern Pakistan, including 15 in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa — 10 in Upper and Lower Chitral, three in Swat and one in Lower Dir.
By July 2, the number had nearly doubled to 40, with Suparco noting that most of the lakes were concentrated in Chitral, Upper Dir and Swat.
The agency said it was regularly monitoring Potentially Dangerous Glacial Lakes (PDGLs) through satellite imagery to support early warning and preparedness for Glof hazards. The monitoring draws on a combined list of 131 PDGL locations supplied by the Provincial Disaster Management Authorities (PDMAs) of KP and Gilgit-Baltistan and Wapda’s Glacier Monitoring and Research Centre.
“As expected with rising summer temperatures, the number of unfrozen glacial lakes is increasing … indicating accelerated seasonal melting,” Suparco said, adding that most unfrozen lakes remained within their previously recorded maximum extents.
A lake becomes a greater concern when its water extent exceeds historical highs, the agency noted, as this can indicate increased water storage and a higher risk of moraine dam instability.
Suparco urged authorities to maintain heightened preparedness in downstream valleys as temperatures continue to rise.
Separately, data from KP’s Provincial Disaster Management Authority (PDMA) shows 63 Glof-vulnerable lakes and 21 potentially dangerous ones spread across five districts.
There are nine vulnerable sites in Chitral, 18 in Upper Dir, 31 in Swat and five in Upper Kohistan. All 21 potentially dangerous lakes are located in Upper and Lower Chitral.
Chitral-based glacier researcher Hamid Ahmed Mir, who has visited many of these sites, told Dawn that the region’s glaciers are unusually vulnerable because of their small size.
With the exception of Tirich-Concordia and Chiantar — the latter feeding the Kabul River — nearly all Hindu Kush glaciers are small, making them highly sensitive to temperature spikes.
These “water towers” are likely to assume even greater importance in the coming years as tensions over water resources between India and Pakistan intensify.
Mir also pointed to steep slope gradients and high seismic activity, noting that five to six fault lines run beneath Chitral alone, alongside a high frequency of minor earthquakes.
Much of the region’s development has been unplanned, often ignoring its fragile ecosystem and lacking proper risk assessments or environmental impact studies.
For example, Mir cited the use of explosives to dig the three-kilometre headrace tunnel for the Golen Gol hydropower project, which was inaugurated in 2018 — two years before a major Glof struck the valley.
Mir also pointed to Chitral’s status as an air-shed valley, where surrounding high mountains trap air, dust and pollutants.
His recent research into dust generated by traffic on the largely unpaved, poorly maintained Chitral–Mastuj road found that the 110-kilometre stretch, which has been under construction for more than a decade, could be producing approximately 40,000 tonnes of airborne or fugitive dust each year, including nearly 9,600 tonnes of respirable PM10 particulate matter.
“The Chitral–Mastuj road is a vital transportation corridor that supports communities, trade, and tourism. However, its predominantly unpaved surface also represents a significant source of fugitive dust,” the research paper noted.
It added that preliminary engineering estimates suggested around 28,000 tonnes of that dust settled within the surrounding valley annually.
The paper warned that the implications extended far beyond a roadside nuisance, as dust affects human health, agriculture, alpine ecosystems, water resources and glacier stability, potentially amplifying the impacts of climate change in one of Pakistan’s most environmentally sensitive mountain regions.
It recommended improved road surfacing, dust suppression, vegetation restoration and systematic environmental monitoring to protect local air quality and long-term water security in Chitral and further downstream.
KP PDMA Director General Arifullah Awan told Dawn that the provincial government was pursuing both mitigation and adaptation strategies to protect the region from climatic threats.
At least 85 early warning systems, rain gauges and other sensors have been installed across Lower and Upper Chitral, Upper Dir, Swat and Upper Kohistan with support from the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).
Community-based disaster risk management committees, including union council secretaries and local members, have also been formed, with alert times ranging from 20 to 35 minutes.
To protect the early warning systems from vandalism, district- and tehsil-level committees have also been established. FIRs have been lodged in the past over damage to the equipment.
The government is also pursuing afforestation, environment-friendly infrastructure and climate-resilient construction as part of its broader mitigation and adaptation strategy, Awan added.- The Dawn/ANN
