A massive boulder under the spillway of the Attabad Lake is hindering the outflow of water from the lake, prolonging the miseries of thousands of people at Gojal.
“The boulder is too big to be moved using controlled blasts,” Gilgit-Baltistan (G-B) Chief Minister Mehdi Shah told The Express Tribune on Sunday. He added that when he asked the G-B force commander about the slow drainage of water from the lake, he informed him about the boulder.
More than 25,000 people in upper Hunza or Gojal have faced numerous miseries since January 2010, after a massive landslide blocked the Hunza River at Attabad, creating a lake that not only submerged a large stretch of the Karakoram Highway, but also five villages upstream.
The Frontier Works Organisation made several attempts to widen the spillway through controlled blasts but failed to drain the 23-kilometre-long lake.
“If we go for full-fledged blasting, the nearby valleys could also be damaged,” Mehdi Shah said, adding that efforts remain afoot to remove the debris.
The chief minister said that those affected by the landslide will be relocated to Ghizer Valley. Meanwhile, the affected people of three villages submerged upstream staged a protest on Sunday, saying that they have not yet gotten the compensation announced last year. “We haven’t got the Rs600,000 compensation announced by the prime minister,” said the protestors, who are planning to intensify their protest in the coming days if the G-B government continues to delay payment.
Published in The Express Tribune, May 16th, 2011.
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