“Increase duration of excavation work to 24 hours”, Save Gojal – Hunza Committee
Photo by Zafar Bari
Members of the Save Gojal – Hunza Committee have demanded of the government to increase duration of the excavation work on the artificial lake to 24 hours everyday. The activists have started token hunger strike in front of the Karachi Press Club since February 23. “The plan is to hold the hunger strike till our demand is met”, Qasim Shah of the Save Gojal – Hunza Committee told Pamir Times. Everyday three protesters will sit in front of the press club to highlight the issue being faced by the people of Gojal valley in particular and Hunza, in general.
“The government is using delaying tactics by working for six hours everyday”, said another activist while talking to Pamir Times on phone. “At this pace the water will take over three months to flow out of the lake”, he said. The protesters also feared that villages up to Passu will be affected in such a scenario.
The protesters have also demanded of the government to increase the target excavation depth at lake barrier to 50 m, at least. Currently the government plans to achieve a depth of only 20 m.
well done Rahim Nazar and Qasim Shah
The problem is very serious.
Does anyone realise the volume of water that has accumulated behind the dam barrier?, and God forbid if the dam fails the disaster it will cause downstream. 20 meters, 50 meters are all meaningless as no Dam modelling has been done so far.
FWO is working very hard with machines that have been provided.What government should do is bring more heavy excavation machines and engineers and workers, do dam modelling and inform the people on regular basis about what they are planning to do.
Government should seek advice from big NGOs like FOCUS and DFID, NORAD,Red Cresent.
Good effort shown by Rahim Nazar and Qasim Shah. The issue is very serious and alarming but so far the excavation work is going with snell speed. The administration must speed up the work and should increase the working hours. The working hours at the site is 8 hours, it needs to be increased to 12 hours, if 24 hours is not possible for the administration.
The current PPP government must be very serious with this particular issue, otherwise they will lose their credablity las they did in other parts of the country.
Good Show Guyz…
Good steps toward save Gojal movement by Gojali Guys in Karachi I appreciate you all, but the response from Government is not good till today, the speed of work on removal of debris is very slow and in the coming months the season will be worm and the volume of release of water from the glaciers will be speedup and more people will be suffer in the next disaster in the adown stream areas
we have to continue our strike against the slow pace of work till gov take any serious action to release the deadly lake……..gud move SAVE GOJAL, HUNZA COMMITTEE……….
WEL DONE A.Karim,Rahim Bahi n Qasim
Dear Rahim and Qasim,
This seems very good, this is one way to put pressure on government to push up the work on the landslide.. i appreciate your effortsssssssssss
Aziz
Haiti
Very impressive move by the youngster of Gojal in Karachi. Being lively is the difference between Karachi and rest of the cities.
Your demand for speeding up the task for early discharge of the lake formed due to the massive rock/ landslide at Attabad is not only for saving Gojal but the whole population and human settlements up and down stream.
God forbid if it is further delayed due to any reason, the catastrophic consequence in case of sudden breach can leave a massive distraction downstream up to Tarbela with
possible loss to more human lives and infrastructure. It is anticipated that the extraordinary huge wave of water can flash away the KKH which is the lifeline of Gilgit-Baltistan.
The Federal Government, the Chinese Government and the local government should take this matter very seriously without wasting any time, otherwise it will cost billions in funds to re establish the link.
It is crystal clear that FWO (Fund Wasting Organization) has no capacity, will, and expertise to deal with landslide of this magnitude and the Government of Pakistan should seek help from China (the most feasible and possible solution) if they think this area as their territory.
Shisket Bridge will get submerge in river in next 72 hours. How helpless we all are; what is NDMA doing.This is national infrastructure.Who will take responsibility ofr delay in excavation.More water collect behing the dam barrier,more grave danger is of dam burst.Please take this seriously.
Thank you on behalf of all people of upper Hunza to FOCUS for doing excellent work.
Pamir Times is doing excellent work of informing the world about this large natural disaster. A large volume of water has collected behind the dam barrier and in case of dam failure the river water will go down like a rolling wave and can potentially damage infrastructure as way down as Tarbella. look at the 1858 landslide that was close to location of present landslide…..it caused destruction upto Attok .It can cause a lot of loss of property and life.Early Warning Systems should be installed in all villages and communities trained in evacuation. With increased glacier melt, the RED Zone starts in middle of March and get very serious in April. Has Government done Dam modelling?.They should urgently do it and work out different scanarious. I estimate the peak flow in case of dam failure to be over 18,000 cumecs.this is a big hammer which can do a lot of destructions.Has Shishket bridge already submerged?. what a loss