Rina Saeed Khan -
A menacing black glacier is bulldozing its way down a valley in northern Pakistan, threatening to cut off a vital road link to China and blocking melt-water that could flood villages below.
Up close, the surging wall of ice almost 200 metres high, above Hassanabad village in Hunza district, cracked and groaned in the May sun as ice and debris fell off in big chunks.
The glacier has been advancing since last July, according to Faheem Baig, a shepherd from the village next to the Karakoram Highway (KKH), 4 km downstream of the glacier mouth.
“I went off with my yaks to the summer pasture far up above the glacier in May, and when I came back to get some supplies in October, the valley was completely blocked by this glacier,” he said.
“The trail on the mountainside was gone and with great difficulty I made it back over the mountain-top. I had to leave my livestock behind. I couldn’t believe it had moved so fast.”
Shehzad Baig, assistant director of the Gilgit-Baltistan Disaster Management Authority, said the Shishper glacier was on the move partly because it was located on the main Karakoram thrust line where tectonic plates are shifting.
In addition, deposits of snow on the glacier have increased due to larger amounts of snowfall in the winter months over the past five years linked to climate change, he said.
A February report on the Hindu-Kush-Himalayan region from the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD) said the Karakoram and western Himalaya areas were seeing more variability and a higher probability of snowfall.
But Philippus Wester from the Nepal-based ICIMOD, who led the study, said that while some glaciers in Pakistan are stable and a few are even gaining ice, they will nonetheless all start to melt in time as the planet heats up.
The report warned that more than a third of the ice in the region would melt by 2100 even if governments took tough action to limit global warming under the 2015 Paris climate agreement.
Hunza District Commissioner Babar Sahib Din, said the 15 km-long Shishper glacier had surged forward 2.5 km since last July, and was now advancing nearly 4 metres per day.
“At this rate it will take around two years to reach the KKH — but we are hopeful that it will stop surging,” said Sahib Din.
To the left of Shishper is another glacier, Muchowar, which was once parallel but retreated 4 km from 2006 to 2017, possibly sparked by rock falls linked to local mining activity.
Shishper’s surge ahead means the water coming out of Muchowar as it melts in the summer cannot run down the ravine’s streams, and has formed a lake in the Muchowar Valley.
A month ago, there was a danger that glacial lake would burst, causing floods below. But Sahib Din said the risk had passed as crevices had opened in Shishper with May’s rising temperatures, enabling water to pass through into the stream.
However, there are 72 houses downstream that are at risk from sudden flooding in case bigger crevices open and the water starts flowing faster.
Villagers have been told where to evacuate, and Sahib Din has set up a control room to monitor the situation.
An early warning system for glacial lake outburst floods (GLOFs) would be invaluable, he and other experts said.
The Green Climate Fund, set up to help developing countries tackle climate change, has granted $37 million to a project to reduce the risks of such floods in northern Pakistan.
— Thomson Reuters Foundation
Oman Observer is now on the WhatsApp channel. Click here
