Unfortunately, the amount that they can do in actually widening the channel is limited, whist the risks to those undertaking this work are high. Hacking away at the toe could destabilise the slope such that it collapses, dumping all of them in the water, and there is the potential for further slides from the slope behind.
Earlier reports suggested that people trying to join this effort from downstream has a confrontation with the police, and at least one person was injured.
I fear that this will ramp up the pressure on the authorities such that they will end up blasting the boulders without undertaking a full analysis. I hope that this does not happen - but that a proper study is undertaken urgently.
I live in the UK and have been following your blog and the Pamir Times for many weeks now.
ReplyDeleteMy heart bleeds for these desperate people who are forced through necessity to do a job (using little more than their bare hands) that the government should have done months ago.
Local press reports the regional government has proclaimed Section 144 which prohibits gatherings of more than five people, has reinforced the police barricade to prevent people
ReplyDeletereaching the dam from downstream and has seized boats on the upstream end. Demonstrably the government is in charge, but sadly witless and ineffectual.
the only thing that needs to be really done is to somehow remove the first boulder blocking the mouth of the spillway. Once that is removed, the channel will make its own enlarged course through vertical and horizontal erosion. I don;t know why these people are trying to widen the channel in other places. Either a channel should be dug around the boulder or the builder should be removed through, drilling holes and dismantling it, blasting it.
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