Analysis
The catastrophic floods and landslides along the Nepal-Tibet border should serve as a serious warning for Gilgit-Baltistan, a region with a similarly fragile high-mountain environment, where glaciers, steep valleys, unstable slopes and settlements along rivers and streams create significant exposure to climate-induced disasters.
The disaster is particularly relevant for Gilgit-Baltistan, home to one of the world’s largest concentrations of glaciers outside the polar regions. Rising temperatures, accelerated glacier melt, the formation and expansion of glacial lakes, flash floods, landslides and increasingly unpredictable weather are changing the risk landscape across the region.
For communities in Gilgit-Baltistan, these risks are no longer projections for the future. Their impacts have been repeatedly visible in recent years and again during the current summer, with floods and landslides damaging houses, roads, bridges, irrigation channels, agricultural land and other infrastructure across different valleys.
Considerable investment has been made in some of the region’s most vulnerable valleys, particularly through the Green Climate Fund-supported GLOF-II project, implemented by the Government of Pakistan in partnership with UNDP. The programme has invested in early warning systems, community-based disaster risk management centres, evacuation shelters and protective infrastructure.
However, the functionality, maintenance, coverage and last-mile effectiveness of these investments remain serious concerns. These concerns have also been acknowledged at the highest levels of government. In April 2026, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif ordered a high-level inquiry into the non-functional early warning system installed in Gilgit-Baltistan for protection against glacial lake outburst floods. He expressed strong displeasure that the system remained inactive despite earlier directives and warned that “incompetence and poor performance will not be tolerated.” He also directed that early warning systems and their digital monitoring infrastructure be made fully functional.
The issue, therefore, goes beyond the number of systems installed. It raises two equally important questions: whether vulnerable valleys are adequately covered in the first place, and whether systems already installed are functional, maintained, monitored and capable of delivering an actionable warning to communities before a disaster strikes.
An early warning system can only save lives when the technology works, responsibilities for monitoring and issuing warnings are clearly defined, communication channels remain operational and communities understand what action to take after receiving an alert.
At the government level, GBDMA, district administrations, Rescue 1122 and other institutions regularly mobilise during floods, landslides and other emergencies. However, much of the visible institutional response continues to be concentrated on rescue, relief, damage assessment and restoration after disasters have occurred.
With climate-related hazards becoming more frequent and unpredictable, Gilgit-Baltistan needs a stronger shift from post-disaster response towards preparedness, resilience and risk reduction. This requires continuous monitoring of glaciers and unstable slopes, identification of changing risk zones, maintenance and testing of early warning systems, clearly marked evacuation routes, regular community drills and stronger communication between technical agencies, district administrations and communities.
Community-based preparedness provides another important layer of protection. The Aga Khan Agency for Habitat (AKAH) has worked with vulnerable mountain communities in Gilgit-Baltistan and Chitral on hazard and risk assessments, community-based disaster risk management, emergency preparedness, volunteer response capacity and early warning systems. Such approaches are particularly important in remote valleys, where communities can become isolated when roads, bridges and communication networks are disrupted.
In those critical first hours, local communities are often the first responders. Technology, government institutions and organised communities therefore need to function as one connected preparedness and response system.
The Nepal-Tibet border disaster demonstrates how quickly a high-mountain hazard can develop into a devastating downstream emergency. For Gilgit-Baltistan, where climate-related hazards are already affecting communities with increasing frequency, preparedness cannot remain limited to infrastructure, equipment and plans on paper.
The real measure of preparedness is not the number of sensors installed, shelters constructed or committees formed. It is whether the entire system works when danger approaches: whether risks are detected in time, warnings reach the last vulnerable settlement, communities know where to go, evacuation routes remain accessible and responsible institutions are ready to act.
In a region where settlements, livelihoods and critical infrastructure lie directly below glaciers, unstable slopes and rapidly changing waterways, the window between an early warning and a disaster can be dangerously short. The lesson from the Nepal-Tibet border is therefore not simply to invest more, but to ensure that existing investments work, institutional preparedness moves ahead of disaster rather than following it, and communities have the information and capacity to act before the next emergency arrives.
