Japanese, Koreans among 14 injured in Attabad lake

Landslide occurred while FWO was using dynamite to blast rocks.

GILGIT:

A boat was hit by stones and boulders blown out by a blast at the spillway of Attabad Lake, leaving 14 injured, including four foreign passengers, officials said.

“Four of the injured were foreigners — two Koreans and two Japanese nationals,” Deputy Commissioner Hunza-Nagar, Rasheed Ahmed told The Express Tribune on Wednesday.

The incident occurred late Tuesday night as the Frontier Works Organization [FWO], while constructing a road, blasted rocks with dynamites.

When the boat reached the spillway from Gulmit, the dynamite went off, throwing stones and boulders that hit the boat and the disembarking passengers.

The boat carrying nearly 16 passengers was present in the hazardous area in spite of a ban placed by the local administration. “It was a violation of the ban to ferry boats in an area under construction,” Ahmed said.

As the news reached the nearby villages, people rushed to the area and shifted the injured to a hospital at Aliabad town of Hunza valley.

“Six of the wounded people have been brought here including one Korean and one Japanese,” a doctor in the District Headquarters Hospital, Gilgit confirmed to The Express Tribune on Wednesday. “They all are here with broken limbs but in stable condition,” he added.

The administration had banned the movement of boats for two days on the lake to allow FWO to blast boulders and rocks for the construction of a link road from the Karakoram Highway up to the spillway.

On Wednesday, DC Rashid Ahmed issued a notification against the ferrying of boats in the lake, asking authorities to take legal action against the violators.

A 23-kilometre lake blocking the river course was formed due to a landslide in Attabad in January 2010.

The FWO has been working on the spillway to drain out water that has submerged three villages upstream and an over 20km portion of the Karakoram Highway, suspending trade and tourism between Pakistan and China.

The delay in the restoration process has crippled the economy of Hunza valley. There have been numerous protests in the area against the FWO.

People have demanded that the restoration work should be undertaken by Chinese experts.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 19^th, 2012.