BBC
In the morning, Komal's view was of jagged, inhospitable mountains, the rushing river dozens of meters below her family's cliff home. Until the water turns into a torrent and tears the ground from beneath their feet.
“It was a sunny day,” says Komal, 18.
For generations, his family had lived among the orchards and green lands in the heart of the Hunza Valley, in the Karakorum Mountains, in the Pakistani-administered Gilgit-Baltistan region.
“In the morning everything was normal, I went to school,” says Komal, “but then my teacher told me that the Hassanabad bridge had collapsed.”
Upstream, a glacial lake had formed, then suddenly erupted, sending water, rocks and debris cascading down the valley and picking up speed. The ground shook so violently that some thought it was an earthquake.
When the torrent hit the cement bridge that connected the two parts of the village, it transformed it into rubble.
A house in the damaged village of Hassanabad, whose walls disappeared after the ground collapsed
“By the time I got home, people were getting out of their homes what they could,” Komal says. She grabbed books, laundry, whatever she could carry, but remembers thinking that with their house so far above the water, there was no way she could be affected.
That was until they received a phone call from across the valley; their neighbors could see that the water was washing away the side of the hill on which their house stood.
Then the houses started to collapse.
“I remember my aunt and uncle were still inside their house when the flood came and took away the entire kitchen,” she says. The family managed to reach safe ground, but their homes disappeared.
Drone footage shows changing landscape of Karakorum glaciers
Today, walking through the gray rubble and dust, there are still some hooks on the wall, a few tiles in the bathroom, a window whose panes have long since disappeared. It's been two years, but nothing has grown on the ruined cliff that was once Komal's garden in Hassanabad.
“It used to be a completely green place,” she says. “When I visit this place, I remember my childhood memories, the time I spent here. But dry places, they hurt me, they make me sad.
Life in the region is precarious. Water from the Hopper Glacier can be seen here flowing through the valley it carved out.
Climate change is altering the landscape of Gilgit-Baltistan and neighboring Chitral, researchers say. This is only part of an area that some call the Third Pole; a place that has more ice than any other part of the world outside of the polar regions.
If current emissions continue, Himalayan glaciers could lose up to two-thirds of their volume by the end of this century, according to the International Center for Integrated Mountain Development.
According to the Aga Khan Development Network (AKDN), more than 48,000 people in Gilgit Baltistan and Chitral are considered to be at high risk in the event of a lake explosion or landslide. Some, like the village of Badswat in neighboring Ghizer district, are in such danger that they are being evacuated entirely to relative safety, their homes having become impossible to live in.
“Climate change has increased the intensity and frequency of disasters in the region,” says Deedar Karim, program coordinator for the Aga Khan Agency for Habitat.
“These areas are very exposed. With the increase in temperature, there are more discharges (of water) and then more flooding. This causes damage to infrastructure, houses, agricultural land; all infrastructure was damaged by these increasing floods.
“The precipitation pattern is changing. The pattern of snowfall changes, then the melting of the glacier changes. This therefore changes the dynamic of dangers.
Pakistan is one of the countries in the world most exposed to glacial lake eruptions
Moving populations is complicated; not only have many spent centuries on their land and are reluctant to leave it, but it is also complicated to find another place that is safe and has access to reliable water.
“We have very limited land and resources. We don’t have common land to move people to,” says Zubair Ahmed, deputy director of the Hunza and Nagar District Disaster Management Authority.
“I can say that after five or ten years it will be very difficult for us to survive. Maybe people will realize this after a few years or decades, but by then it will be too late. So I think it's the right time, even though we're still late, but even now is the time to think about it.
Pakistan is one of the countries most vulnerable to climate change, even though it is responsible for less than 1% of global greenhouse gas emissions.
“We cannot stop these events because it is a global problem,” says Ahmed. “All we can do is mitigate and prepare our population to face such events. »
Ijaz is an emergency volunteer, trained in evacuations, first aid and mountain rescue.
In the village of Passu, a little over an hour's drive from Hassanabad, an evacuation exercise is organized; preparation for potential destruction. People know that in an emergency, it can take days for outside help to arrive if roads and bridges are blocked, damaged or washed away.
Trained in first aid, river crossings and high mountain rescue, they practice evacuating the village several times a year, with volunteers carrying the injured on stretchers and dressing fake wounds.
Ijaz has been a volunteer for 20 years and has many stories of rescuing lost hikers in the mountains. But he too is worried about the number of dangers and the increasing unpredictability of the weather in the region where he lives.
“With the current weather, we just can't tell what's going to happen,” he said. “Five years ago, the weather didn’t change that much. Now, after half an hour, we can't say what it will be.
He also knows that his team of volunteers can't do much.
“Unfortunately, if the flood comes and it's significant, there's nothing we can do,” he said. “The area is totally destroyed. If it is small, we can help people survive and escape flooded areas.
In an emergency, it may take several days for outside help to arrive.
There are other mitigation measures in the region; stone and wire barriers to try to slow floodwaters, systems to monitor melting glaciers, rainfall and water levels, loudspeakers installed in villages to warn the community if danger seems likely. But many who work here say they need more resources.
“We have installed early warning systems in some valleys,” explains Mr. Ahmed. “These were identified by the Pakistan Meteorological Department and they gave us a list of around 100 valleys. But due to limited resources, we can only intervene in 16 cases.”
He says they are in discussions to expand this project further.
Sultan Ali says he feels helpless: if the flood comes, it will wash away everything
A few houses from Komal lives Sultan Ali, now 70 years old.
As we chat on a bed of traditional charpoy, her granddaughters bring us a plate of pears they picked from their garden.
He knows that if another flood comes, his house could also disappear in the valley, but he says he has nowhere to go.
“As I approach the end of my life, I feel helpless,” he told me. “The children are very worried, they ask where are we going to live?
“We have no options. If the flood comes, it will take everything away and there is nothing we can do about it. I can't blame anyone; it's just our destiny.
Komal doesn't think they'll be able to stay, but they have nowhere to go
We watch his grandchildren play tag in the shade of the orchard. The seasons, the ice, the environment change around them. What will this earth look like when they are older?
Komal also doesn't know what the future holds for her.
“I don’t think we’ll stay here forever,” she said. “The situation is already clear. But the question for us is that we have no other place to go. Only that.
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