Affectees march towards ‘Red Zone’

Hundreds of people displaced by the Attabad “landslide” lake marched towards their houses located in the red zone.

GILGIT: Hundreds of people displaced by the Attabad “landslide” lake on Wednesday came out of their camps in desperation and marched towards their houses located in a zone marked as dangerous by the authorities. They also rejected a relief package announced by the government for them.

“More than 200 people, mostly young men, left their camps in Hunza and marched towards the villages of Attabad and Sarat which have been declared ‘extremely dangerous’ by experts,” sources told The Express Tribune by telephone from Hunza.

The lake was created in January when a massive landslide blocked the flow of the Hunza river, killing 20 people and displacing thousands of others from their villages. The lake submerged four villages upstream besides part of Attabad village. However, experts have warned that the remaining part of Attabad and neighbouring Sarat village are extremely dangerous for living.

The authorities have shifted more than 25,000 people from villages downstream to higher grounds after experts warned last month that several villages would be swept away by a flash flood if the lake burst its banks under mounting pressure.

Earlier desperate villagers had marched towards the spillway dug in the lake, defying all warnings and removing police barricades. They had staged a sit-in there for several hours, threatening to remain there until their demands were accepted by the Gilgit-Baltistan chief minister. Subsequently, the authorities imposed Section 144, banning rallies and gathering of people in Hunza town.

The displaced people have rejected a compensation package announced by the government, calling the amount “peanuts” as compared to the magnitude of the disaster. They threatened to go on indefinite strike along with their families, including women and children, if the government continued to remain “apathetic” towards their plight.  However, officials said that some “mischievous elements” were trying to mislead the people by staging protests in the area. “These adventurous young men don’t have the support of the people,” an official told The Express Tribune by the phone. “Whenever the elders of Hunza meet us, they complain about the defiant attitude of their youths,” said the official.

Last week, Speaker Gilgit-Baltistan Assembly Wazir Baig said that the affected people, mainly women, were developing physiological problems as the crisis prolongs. He supported the people’s claims that they should be given more money to overcome their losses caused by the landslide.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 8^th, 2010.