Our country is home to a dynamic landscape – with beaches, waterfalls, lakes and even some gorgeous, awe-inspiring glaciers. The much renowned Hunza valley is often called “heaven on Earth” but it looks like our little piece of heaven is in trouble.
Late last month, residents of the tiny village of Hassanabad, in Hunza, noticed floodwaters quickly rising in the stream that runs near their homes, carrying water from the towering Shishper glacier. “The flows became so high that they eroded the land and reached 10 feet (three metres) from my family’s home. We evacuated,” said Ghulam Qadir, a resident of the village.
The glaciers are melting which have already demolished the cherry, apricot and walnut orchards which were a source of livelihood for many families. Not only that, it left homes cracked, 16 families in tents and local irrigation and hydropower systems damaged.
“The floodwater broke all the retaining walls that were built last year in order to protect the village,” Qadir told the Reuters news agency by telephone.
“Now there is a ravine right next to our houses, and we live in dread of another flood.”
Did you know that with more than 7,000, Pakistan has more glaciers than anywhere except the polar regions. But climate change is “eating away Himalayan glaciers at a dramatic rate”, a study published last year in the journal Science Advances noted. As glacial ice melts, it can cause more floods – risking the lives of 7 million that call that heaven on Earth their own home.