Army engineers to create a breach in lake

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DAWN.COM | National | Army engineers to create a breach in lake

Army engineers to create a breach in lake
By Zulfiqar Ali Khan
Wednesday, 20 Jan, 2010


HUNZA: Army engineers will soon start work to make a breach in the artificial lake formed on Hunza River by the Jan 4 landslide. Preparations are also afoot to open Khunjerab border to ensure supply of food and other items from China, said an official here on Tuesday.

In a briefing to journalists in Karimabad here, Deputy Commissioner Zafar Waqar Taj said the army engineer has the capacity and experience to deal with such situations. Maj-Gen Shahid Niaz of Engineering Corps will visit the disaster site on Thursday to finalise the strategy.

It will take over a month to release the water from the lake, he said. The experts of various departments are jointly working to assess the potential risk to the settlements upstream and downstream. He said the district administration has prepared a contingency plan to deal with any situation.

Answering a question, he said the government of Gilgit-Baltistan lacked the required resources and capacity to release the water. Work is in progress to construct road for the movement of machinery to reach the water outlet point.

About evacuation of threatened population in Gojal, Mr Taj said 80 people from Ayeenabad had been shifted to safer places.

Khunjerab border will be opened soon to ensure supply of food and other items to over 22,000 population of Gojal cut off from rest of the world due to the blockade of KKH. The interior ministry has directed the Immigration and Custom Departments to open their facilities at Sost, he added.

He said four helicopters have dumped food and fuel stock in Gojal that will meet the demand of the people for another two weeks. He said the utility stores in Gulmit and Sost have been provided one month’s stock. The local traders are also being facilitated to airlift their merchandise to the valley.



“The government has for the first time in the history of the country provided a very quick response in search and rescue, provision of compensation and airlifting of food and other items to the affected people,” he said.

Meanwhile, the rising level of the lack is creating panic among the people in the low-lying settlements of Gojal.

According to reports, the water outlet is about 98 meters (295 feet) high from the present level in the lake. An expert monitoring the situation informed Dawn that the water level is rising at a ratio of 1.2 meters in the main block and 1 meter in 24 hours in Ayeenabad.



The water has inundated about 400 meters of KKH in Ayeenabad, fields and orchards of about 32 families. Eight families have lost all their belongings.

Our Correspondent from Gilgit adds: The people of Gojal on Tuesday expressed concern over increasing threat to scores of low-lying villages in the valley from rising level of water in a lake and scarcity of edibles.

Addressing a press conference in Gilgit, a group of people from Gojal said that though the government and non-governmental organisations have been providing relief to the landslide-hit people in lower Hunza, there is a need to give attention to the plight of over 22,000 population of Gojal who are facing shortage of edibles, medicines and threat from the lake water. The blockade of KKH has crippled the civic and commercial life in Gojal valley.