Many villages still face risk of glacial lake outburst floods

CHITRAL: The villages of Reshun, Booni, Sonoghur and Awi face potential danger of glacial lake outburst floods where stockpiles are being maintained in ample quantity to make their timely availability to the affected people apart from creating awareness among them.

Speakers at a workshop was held by Biyar Local Support Organisation in Booni to share the communitybased disaster risk management (CBDRM) plan with the stake-holders and government officials. The workshop was attended by representatives of different disaster management organisations including Pakistan Red Crescent Society and other volunteers, who gave their inputs to make the documents more viable.

Sher Afzal, the manager of the local support organisation, said they wanted to make the community resilient to the natural disasters. He said that the villages of Reshun, Booni, Sonoghur and Awi faced potential danger of glacial lake outburst floods where stockpiles were being maintained in ample quantity to make their timely availability to the affected people besides creating aware-ness among them.

PROTEST 

The residents of Mastuj tehsil have threatened to launch a protest movement if government fails to provide electricity to them from Golen Gol hydro power project. Addressing a press conference here on Monday,

MPA Syed Sardar Hussain Shah, tehsil nazim Maulana Mohammad Yousuf and district councillors Maulana Javed, Sher Aziz Baig and Qazi Saifuddin said that provincial government made no alternative arrangement to provide electricity to the affected consumers after the Reshun powerhouse of Pedo was washed away in 2015. They said that the affected peo-ple pinned hopes on the underconstruction Golen Gol hydro powerhouse of Wapda, which was likely to be inaugurated by prime minister on January 8.

They added that the consumers of Mastuj were being deprived of thefacility on the pretextthatthe area was fed by Pedo, which needed to ink agreement with Pesco to buy electricity. The provincial government is applying delaying tactics to ink agreement with Pesco and purchase electricity for its 21,000 consumers in upper Chitral. “It has created unrest amongst the people. It will result in chaos if they are deprived of electricity after inauguration of the powerhouse,” said the elders.–Dawn