Authorities left guessing as lake swells

GILGIT: There seems to be little chance that the spillway will be able to drain the 23-kilometre-long Attabad lake anytime soon. Initially, water was expected to be drained by June.

However, the lake is constantly expanding, submerging villages upstream, one after another, and displacing more and more people. The government is currently providing food for as many as 30,000 people, including those living in Gojal which was cut off by the Attabad landslide that killed 20 people in January.

The authorities are now in a fix. If the government decides to widen the spillway by using explosives – the only available option – the risk of gushing water bursting the lake’s banks cannot be ruled out. But if the government doesn’t, it will have to keep operating camps for internally displaced persons (IDPs).

For experts, a minor miscalculation may turn thousands of people downstream into permanent IDPs. Moreover, with some elements already holding the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) responsible for the crisis, a botch-up will also cost the NDMA its credibility.

“It has developed into a very complex situation,” said a senior administration official on Tuesday. The limbo continues to haunt IDPs and government officials alike, he said. The creation of the spillway was meant to release the water on a controlled scale which, it was hoped, would gradually erode the spillway. Thus, by the time that the water could burst the lake’s banks, much of it would have already gone downstream.

Pressure is mounting on the government as the unpredictability of the situation has left experts guessing. The lake’s depth dropped eight inches last week before rising again by six inches in the past two days. On Tuesday, Hunza assistant commissioner said that a rise of at least 3.5 inches was recorded. The lake is expected to rise further in the face of intensified glacier-melting given the rise in temperatures in the area.

It also means that, if the water surge continues unabated, the villages of Shishkat and Gulmit face submersion.

Published in the Express Tribune, June 15^th, 2010.