“Persistent rainfall accelerated snow melting and triggered both floods and outbursts of glacial lakes in Chitral District,” says the former head of Pakistan’s Meteorological Department (PMD) and now a national climate change expert, Dr Qamar-uz-Zaman Chaudhry. “This is an El Nino year (a complex series of climatic changes affecting the equatorial Pacific region and beyond every few years) and that contributed to the abruptness of the monsoon this summer. Some monsoon currents penetrated into the Hindu Kush Mountain range, an area which generally lies outside the monsoon belt.”

His explanation reflects what eyewitnesses have reported from Rumbur Valley, the second Kalash Valley in Chitral to be badly affected by the flooding. The third Kalash valley of Birir fortunately was not damaged by the floods. “The floods started on July 13 and we had almost continuous flooding until Aug 5. We had rainfall almost every day. There were two types of floods — a glacier flood in the Rumbur Nullah (the mountain stream flowing across the floor of the valley) and the other being flash floods coming down one of the mountain sides,” says Mohammed Iqbal, a Kalash social worker with the Pakistan Red Crescent Society.

“Water flooded into the Jestak temple (dedicated to the deity that protects family) in Balanguru village but luckily it was not badly damaged.” He says that after a survey of the valley they found that around 34 houses in Rumbur, mostly near the Rumbur Nullah were damaged or destroyed by the floods. There was no loss of life in the valley as the shepherds who take livestock up to the high mountain pastures in the summer months had called over the mobile phone network, warning the villagers of Rumbur that floods were on their way. “The shepherds told us that they saw cloudbursts over the Gangalurat glacier on the boundary with Nuristan which then burst.”

Being an El Nino year contributed to the abruptness of monsoon, this summer

The floods brought down boulders, trees and whatever was in their way, destroying orchards, fields, water channels and roads. Today the jeep track to Rumbur Valley, which is located an hour’s drive from the larger Bumburet Valley, is barely open. In fact, the track ends at the entrance to the valley and one has to go on foot to the villages beyond the bridge that somehow survived. “I think there were around 40 to 50 floods here this summer — in 2010 (when there was widespread flooding throughout Pakistan) there was just one big flood,” explains Iqbal as we walk up the valley until even the walking track disappears, having been swept away by the flood in the Nullah.

The Kalash people living further up the valley have to literally cling to the cliff wall above the Nullah where they have wedged precarious wooden planks into the cliff side to walk to the main village where the shops are located. There are no big hotels in Rumbur, just a few guesthouses where tourists can stay overnight. Now that the road to the valley has been re-opened in late September, the local people say at least the food crisis is over for now. “We were confined to the houses located further up on the mountain sides and we ran out of food; we had to rely on the army helicopters who dropped wheat and other rations during the floods,” recalls Iqbal. Luckily, their mobile phones were still working so they could alert the outside world.

“The noise of the floods was deafening. The children are still so traumatised; every time it rains now they start crying and saying ‘a flood is coming’,” says Naseem, a Kalash woman who lives in Grum Village at the entrance to the Rumbur Valley. She says that with winter approaching they will be facing some hard times. “All our crops with potatoes, beans and sorghum near the Nullah are gone along with so many fruit trees. The drinking water supply has not been restored and the women have to daily go down to the Nullah to fetch water and carry it up in large vessels; the children and elderly are starting to get water-borne diseases and falling sick. The electricity has not been restored either.” There used to be a micro-hydel power plant providing electricity to Rumbur Valley, which was damaged by the floods; the community plans to restore it before winter. The main water pipeline supplying drinking water to Rumbur was also damaged in the floods and the local people are urging the government to restore it.

“For now the people who lost their homes are living with relatives but that will put a strain on everyone over the long winter months when the valley is cut off by snow and we can’t buy supplies from the outside. In November, the snow starts to fall and roads are closed for almost four months,” says Quaid-i-Azam, a Kalash man from Rumbur who works for the Hindu Kush Heights hotel in Chitral town. “However, I have heard that the World Food Programme is planning to give food to the Kalash valleys for the four winter months.” This is good news for the valley’s 2,200 residents.

The Kalasha people are quite resilient; they even celebrated the “Uchaw Festival” in late August. “Uchaw commemorates the harvest and we celebrated it on Aug 22 after the floods despite all the destruction. This is a religious festival and we have to continue with our culture and rituals,” explains Azam. He is worried about the future though. “The floods are becoming worse each year — these floods were much worse than the 2010 flood and the flash floods of 2012. We have to plan now for future floods; we need to stock food in higher places where floods can’t reach and not allow any construction near the Nullah. Even our ancestors built their homes higher up on the mountain slopes even though there was no lack of space then. Today because of the growing population in the Kalash valleys people have no choice but to build near the Nullah but they are risking their lives. They only got saved this time because of the mobile phone warning. They were extremely lucky.” In his view the floods were so severe that even in other places in Chitral where there has been less deforestation, there was major flooding. “No one is safe now with all this climate change.”

Published in Dawn,Sunday Magazine , October 18th , 2015

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