Year 2010 brought a mourn with it for the people of Hunza. Cold was on its peak, dawn of the January 4 came up with harsh cold, and the day proved coldest day of the days and cold month of the months, proved very unfortunate for the people of Hunza in their entire history. Nature loving people every body of Attabad, Hunza were busy in their routine life, farmers were tiring in their routine cattle’s affairs, female in household affairs and children with their schools. The day treated as savage as it was cold, as harsh it scrutinized the people of Hunza is unforgettable.

Hunza valley, one of the valuable parts of Pakistan ruined by the murderous land sliding and a natural catastrophe. Although casualties were less but its magnitude was grim for the people of Hunza. The catastrophe took 13 precious lives 6 severely injured and about hundreds Kanals of land and millions of property smashed and more than 30,000 residents of Upper Hunza Gojal is still isolated from the Pakistan. Other than there are almost more than 2500 students suffer due IDPs and blockage of karakrarm high way (KKH) which links Pakistan and china.
The unpredictable future of thousand of students and survival problem of thousands of general masses of upper Hunza Gojal valley, which is really intimidating and disastrous.

Two years later of the disaster, still there is a chaos; it doesn’t seem predictable to think about the long term strategy for rebuilding effected area and rehabilitation of victims. After long period of convulse beneath, victims of Attabad Valley are still plumbing for justice, rights and basic necessities of the life.

Rotten rulers and politicians betrayed the people of Hunza Via fake promises. On 21 may 2010 Prime Minister of Pakistan Yousuf Raza Gilani visited Hunza and ensured assistance in his extensive speech, but his speech gave no more than a betray. Local rural promised victims to compensate but it could not minimize the despair and distress of the sufferers.

Furthermore, the Pakistani forces who have been working over the spillway, they were not well equipped for the vital task setting up a supply chain aid and breach the stored water/dam. This is what they are doing under a sensible division of labors certainly most ordinary general masses seem please to see the government measures.

17 June 2010 local people started widening the spillway, the police stopped them by assuring them as government is a doer.

“All the government promises proved wrong and no more then a political statement. Promises of local and national leaders Governor Gilgit-Baltistan, speaker GB and Chief Minister GB have been encouraging the people and victims but in vain”.Baba Jan said. Further he said “we will continue the struggle and protest unless governments fulfill our demands”.

He added “If government cannot handle the problems of lack widening and victims then they should surrender and we the local people will do by self help”.

The story does not end here, the event led to take two innocent lives more, father and son on August 2011 when the victims protested in Aliabad for their demands, and hundreds of youth including many graduates students of Hunza victimized of police FIRs, the story of injustice reached to its climax and Government custody and jailed many political and social leader including Baba Jan.

Further Delay and disarray will cost many lives and the longer it lasts, the more likely that depression and despair will turn into violence and situation will be worst to bad. I think enough is enough now the need of hour is to provide justice, whosoever is responsible for not clearing the spill way, not compensating the victims should soon bring under the law and accept the demands and free the political prisons and say bye to FWO and deliver the contract to any international origination to avoid further any repulsive event.

Contributor, Ejaz Karim a student of FC College, Lahore. He can be reached at k4karimformanite@gmail.com

As the second anniversary of Attabad landslide approaches, Gojalis have come to believe that a nationwide agitation is the only way they will be able to get the authorities’ attention.

The Attabad Lake formed when a massive landslide on January 4, 2010 struck the small hamlet of Attabad, killing 19 people. The lake has consumed at least four villages upstream since then and has expanded. The dam still threatens three dozen villages downstream if it is breached.

The government promised to have the 23-km-long lake drained by the summer of 2010, but two years later the lake is still as it was, with more than 25,000 people living in Upper Hunza Valley, or Gojal, cut off and Pak-China trade badly affected.

Aziz Ahmed, a member of the anniversary organising committee, said, “It appears that there is no end in sight to our miseries, so we plan to knock the door of everyone we can for the resolution of this critical issue.”

He said that they want the task of draining the lake to be assigned to a company other than the Frontier Works Organisation (FWO).

Ahmed claimed that the lake could be drained within two months if the task was given to a Chinese firm, but accordingly to FWO, a team of World Bank experts, Dr Richard Hughes, Dr David Petlay and Allessandro Palinieri, visited the site on March 11, 2010 to conduct a technical evaluation and suggest modalities to tackle the catastrophe. The team fully endorsed the plan proposed by Pakistan Army and NESPAK experts to tackle the catastrophe.

But Ahmed is still apprehensive. “The lake has crushed the local economy.”

Following the submerging of a 25 km patch of the KKH, Pakistan’s trade with China suffered, and whatever volume of trade continues is only taking place using boats. Traders load goods on to boats in Gulmit and offload them in Attabad. The goods are then delivered to other parts of the country.

With trade disrupted, China has twice provided consignments of relief goods to the victims of Attabad Lake since the tragedy, Ahmed said.

However, the situation in Gojal valley has deteriorated further since the temperature plummeted and the water turned into ice, making the voyage near impossible. “Just imagine the condition of the passengers, especially women and children and the sick and elderly, who are forced to travel in open boats in this freezing weather,” a passenger said.

Earlier this week, the district government placed a ban on boat travel through Attabad Lake, but local boat owners defied the ban, despite the threat to life and limb.

The people believe that by highlighting the issue on the second anniversary of the catastrophe, they will be able to pressure the government into having the lake drained. Success, or lack thereof, could define the region’s future.

Published in The Express Tribune

Source (Tribune) The deceased were a part of a caravan which was headed towards Gojal Valley, when the incident happened.

The locals of the area tried to rescue them but failed to do so.

Three people also sustained injuries in the incident and were moved to a nearby hospital.

The locals said that the people who died were employees of a Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO).

Pakistan is at a greater risk of “massive floods” due to the melting of glaciers up north. The situation needs to be thoroughly assessed, before it gets too late.

Automatic monitoring stations have been set up at only two of the 5,320 glaciers in Gilgit-Baltistan, at least 10 stations are required to monitor the overall situation of the melting glaciers.

Experts believe that the fast melting of glaciers combined with the heavy monsoon rains caused last year’s massive floods that affected around 20 million people and destroyed 1.6 million homes.

The floods inundated up to one-fifth of the country over several weeks as the floodwater swept down Indus River.

Author : Piar Ali
From : Gilgit Baltistan
Occupation : IT Officer
Email: piarali@gmail.com

Why is it that we Gilgit Baltistanies don’t take any notice whatsoever about a certain thing or event unless it concerns us? People are killed in our Gilgit city nearly everyday, but does it make any difference to us?

We read newspapers, watch TV channels everyday, that open fire continues in Gilgit which killed and injured a certain number of people. For us, these people are just numbers, Gilgities, Shias, Sunies or Ismailies. The people who get killed everyday are someone’s son, daughter, brother, sister, father, mother. Be honest, when was the last time you said a dua for those victims? Now I am not saying I’m perfect, sometimes I don’t take notice either.

The question I ask is that why don’t we take notice? Why have we become so self centered that it makes no difference to us if thirty people died in Gilgit, eighteen in Chilass, fifteen in Ghizer, eight in Sakardu or ten in Hunza. We just carry on with our lives as normal as if nothing happened.

So, today I ask all of you, or whoever reads this that why is it that we as Gilgit Baltistanies, as a nation, as a country (Pakistani or any name you chose) never show unity? We always find ways to separate ourselves in one way or another, starting from religion, then go to districts level, going onto the language we speak.

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