70pc water flows out from Shisper Glacial Lake

Islamabad : Almost seventy percent of the water has flown out of Shisper Glacier Lake in Hunza with an average flow of 750,000 cubic feet, posing grave threats to the downstream localities in the area.

According to the Disaster Management Authority of Gilgit-Baltistan, the remaining water of the lake would be released within a week as the temperature is continuously increasing with each passing day.

As part of the contingent plan, the local administration has closed the Karakoram Highway at Hassanabad where the bridge connecting main roads is quite vulnerable to increasing water levels.

The climate change ministry informed that the state-of-the-art equipment installed by it with the help of non-government organizations showed signs of glacial lakes in the Shisper Glacier in 2019. An official said, “The ministry took the matter quite seriously and talked with the relevant departments after which a system was put in place to continuously monitor the glacial lake in the Shisper Glacier.”

It is pertinent to mention here that more than 3,000 glacial lakes have so far emerged in northern areas, out of which 150 can cause Glacial Lake Outburst Flood (GLOF) due to rising temperature.

The glacial lakes are a major source of fresh water in some areas but if their dams breach they can cause catastrophic floods and pose a grave threat to the people and infrastructure in downstream areas.

The GLOF event triggered by the Shisper Glacier surge damaged the Karakoram Highway and caused it to shut down for some time in a few years back.