Attabad Lake: Govt considering helicopter service to ferry residents

Travel by boat has recently been banned.

GILGIT:

The National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) will resume helicopter service for residents of Gojal if the Attabad Lake freezes again, according to sources.

“The plan is under consideration and is likely to be implemented if the situation deteriorates,” a Gilgit-Baltistan (G-B) government official said.

The helicopter’s expenses will be borne by the G-B government. Earlier this week, the G-B government placed a ban on travelling by boat across the lake, an order local boat owners have defied as they continue to ferry passengers across at the risk of being marooned.

The Attabad Lake was formed two years ago after a massive landslide blocked Hunza River and severed road links between Gojal and the rest of the country, forcing residents to travel by boat.

The landslide killed 19 people and blocked the Karakoram Highway, a vital trade route that connects to China, while cutting off 25,000 people in the upper Hunza valley, known as Gojal.

Freezing December temperatures have turned the 23-kilometres lake, the only viable route, to ice, stranding passengers who have no other alternative.

Last year, a number of boats were stranded in the middle of the lake when a large sheet of ice impeded the boats’ progress, forcing the army to rescue the passengers.

Nearing the second year of the lake’s creation, local residents now believe that a nationwide movement may be the only way to attract the government’s attention. “Our only demand is that the lake be drained,” said resident Aziz Ahmed.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 1^st, 2012.