Widening cracks: Survey team reaches Miacher Valley

GILGIT: A team from the Geological Survey of Pakistan (GSP) has arrived in Gilgit-Baltistan’s (G-B) Miacher Valley to examine the “widening” cracks in mountain slopes which could trigger off a bigger disaster than the Attabad tragedy. “The good news is that a team of experts from the GSP has reached the valley and started surveying slopes,” a landslide expert Mujahid Ali Shah told The Express Tribune on Saturday. Located in Hunza-Nagar district, Miacher Valley’s slopes are developing dangerous cracks and if these widen further, it could spark a disaster far bigger than the one that struck Attabad four years ago, killing 19 people.

Shah, who studied landscape ecology at the University of Greifswald, claimed a landslide in Miacher has the potential to cause ‘a disaster 10 times the magnitude of the one that struck Attabad’. “Since October last year, landmass in the valley is showing unexpected signs of a possible disaster, with cracks having widened from nine inches to twelve, in a period of six months,” he said. According to Shah, towards the end of February, as temperatures in the bedding of mobilised debris increases to 4 degrees Celsius, the slopes can be expected to fail. If this happens, the landslide will create a damming wall 400 to 500 metres high and 200 metres wide out of a total of 1,000 to 2,000 million cubic metres of rock debris that will be displaced. According to Assistant Commissioner Ameer Khan, the survey team would analyse the cracks and submit its report to the government. “In the light of the survey report, we will be able to know the magnitude of the disaster and will decide how many households need to be shifted to safer places,” the assistant commissioner told reporters on Friday.

Meanwhile, Miacher Valley has received fresh snowfall, compounding the fragile situation. The snowfall has also temporarily blocked a key artery in the valley for traffic. Published in The Express Tribune, February 9th, 2014.