Living through the pandemic and bracing for the extreme weather events

 

Pakistan has more glacial ice than anywhere on earth outside the Polar Regions with 7,253 known glaciers. Though these glaciers seem a blessing, since they provide about 75 percent of the stored-water supply in the country, they can easily turn into a great natural disaster due to global warming. There are signs that glaciers in Gilgit-Baltistan and Chitral are slowing melting down. This will cause sea-level rise, landslides, avalanches, and glacial lake outburst flood (GLOF). The creation of Attabad Lake in Gojal Valley Hunza in 2010 and the death of 140 soldiers and civilians in the Siachen glacier region in 2012 were a result of landslides and avalanche.

If global warming is not stopped and continues at the current pace, experts warn that the sea level will rise considerably by the end of the century and will bring natural catastrophe to the coastal cities of the world. The coastal regions of Pakistan will be affected severely in that scenario.