GEO 436 GILGIT: The landslide-triggered Attabad Lake finally started to overflow into the spillway early on Saturday and officials warned that a major flood is imminent. Chairman National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) Lt-Gen (retd) Nadeem Ahmad said the purpose of creating the spillway has been achieved so far. He said the water outflow will increase after more water enters the lake. "The next 24 hours are crucial," he said. Some officials said the outflow of water through the spillway was about 20 cusecs while others said it was between 200 to 400 cusecs. "The spilling water was about 20 cusecs at present," a senior administration official said, adding that the lake barrier can collapse any time, triggering a flash flood downstream. People should therefore not venture into low-lying areas. Officials in the NDMA said the overflow on Saturday from the lake remained between 200 to 400 cusecs. Chief Minster Gilgit-Baltistan Mehdi Shah said their homework is complete and everything will be smooth even if the worst scenario takes place. "There is no doubt infrastructure will be damaged if the flow is severe but hopefully no loss of life will occur," he said. He said a flash flood cannot be ruled out in the coming hours as erosion in the spillway was taking place slowly. Noor Aftab adds from Islamabad: The local administration has started identifying schools and government buildings for the shifting of IDPs from relief camps as it is expected that temperature during night at the start of June would fall to 8-10 degrees centigrade. A team of doctors that arrived in the area on the directives of Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif is facing shortage of medicines but efforts are under way to provide necessary kits and medicines to all teams of doctors coming from various areas. Zameer Abbas, Assistant Commissioner of Hunza Nagar, told The News that they were taking every possible measure to avoid any loss of life and evacuation from all such places, declared danger in new report of Nespak, has been completed.
Related posts:
No comments:
Post a Comment