Wednesday, May 19, 2010

I have no idea what is happening at Attabad now!

The situation at Attabad is now completely confused, so apologies for the lack of posts and updates, including to the monitoring site.  For all the right reasons Focus have now stopped collecting their daily data because the site is too dangerous.  The last measurement was before the GLOF, and the actual impact of that event is very unclear.  Meanwhile various news agencies in Pakistan posted suggestions that the lake had risen 10 feet, or even more.

Today NDMA posted their latest update which suggested that the freeboard is still 5.32 metres and that the water level rose just 0.27 m yesterday (as opposed to a rate of 90 cm per day a week ago).  Very strange!  At the same time, the Gilgit-Baltistan Times is reporting that NDMA have said today that overtopping will occur on 22nd May.

Finally, the Pamir Times appears to have stopped posting stories.

So who knows what is going on?  I will post again when I get more information.

8 comments:

  1. Sorry, I was incorrect about the video being removed...

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  2. Chairman of NDMA, National disaster management authority of Pakistan ,just informed that water level has reached to 364 feet. The inflow into reservoir is more than 2500 cusecs while outflow is 200 cusecs. The ferry service has been stopped because of the danger that the embankment may fail (although just a day ago one "special minister" for Atabad disaster, was claiming that there is "no" chance of breaking of embankment. I hope things don't turn ugly.

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  3. Chairman of NDMA, National disaster management authority of Pakistan ,just informed that water level has reached to 364 feet. The inflow into reservoir is more than 2500 cusecs while outflow is 200 cusecs. The ferry service has been stopped because of the danger that the embankment may fail (although just a day ago one "special minister" for Atabad disaster, was claiming that there is "no" chance of breaking of embankment. I hope things don't turn ugly.

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  4. its really confusing situation there on the site of debris its not clear whether the debris has been refilled or its ok but what i got the information on 18th May from upstream in shishkat village is that water was gradually rising toward its last level and more houses are being demolished and these houses are the last range of that village where Focus and NDMA has pointed out for the villagers to evacuate the area.

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  5. Hello David,
    we got the news from the locals that the spillway was still safe from yesterdays land-sliding but its a heavy rain there in all parts of Hunza it could possibly couse a sudden rise of water and bring some thing change.

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  6. Thank you for keeping us informed about the latest situation. Now that we are so close to the start of flow through the spillway, I am hoping that this happens in a rather controlled way. I read through parts of your report and presentation, and I should say that they are very good.
    I am an engineer and may be I can appreciate the difficult job of making a spillway, but I wish that they were able to make it as agreed earlier (more width and some lining). But this is what we have now and hoping / praying for the best scenario.

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  7. I think the reported rise of "0.27 Ms" must surely be a mistyping of 2.7 m, don't you think? That's just under 9 feet, and the reported water height was 340 ft, compared with the previous day's 332.00 ft (itself a triumph of precision over accuracy).

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  8. NDMA and FWO both are the real culprits and ghots who are responsible for this extent of catestrophe as well as further devastations. Based on their sick planning / minds and regardless / arrogant thoughts, we are facing this situation, please do,t believe any Govt. official or any NDMA/FWO report, because they are fake.

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