The Pakistani authorities have put the rescue services on alert. After all, the country warns of flooding, possibly from glacial lakes, in the northern areas of the country. Temperatures in the country have risen to dangerously high levels.
“The provincial government has warned the disaster authority and the vulnerable communities,” said Shahzad Shigri, chief of environmental protection in Gilgit-Baltistan Province.
The glaciers in Pakistan’s northern mountainous regions – the Hindu Kush, Himalayas and Karakoram – are melting rapidly as temperatures rise. More than 3,000 glacial lakes have formed in Gilgit-Baltistan and Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa.
Glacier lakes can cause a tidal wave. According to Shigri, these are sudden events that offer little reaction time and lead to fatalities and destroyed homes in the remote communities. It is estimated that more than 7.1 million people are at risk of being affected.
“The warmest place on earth”
“Pakistan is being ravaged by a devastating heat wave that has unpredictably struck much earlier this year,” said former Climate Change Minister Amin Aslam. He said Dadu, a city in the southern province of Sindh, was the “warmest place on Earth in April”.
Current Climate Change Secretary Sherry Rehman said there has been 62 percent less rainfall this year than previous years.
According to the meteorological service, the heat wave, which started on April 27, will gradually decrease by May 2.
Pakistan is responsible for less than 1 percent of global CO2 emissions, but is among the ten countries most vulnerable to climate change.
Mercury climbs to 50 degrees in India and Pakistan this weekend
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