Glacial lake outburst, Cloud outburst and Flash floods hit different parts of District Chitral at midnight 16th July, 2015 causing extensive damages to houses, mosques, bridges, roads, irrigation and water channels. The communication infrastructure has also been severely affected. Fortunately, in all this devastation, human loss of life has been minimum with only two deaths reported so far. A sizeable portion of population has been cut off which necessitates immediate restoration of roads and bridges.
Water level in River Chitral at different locations is rising with continuous rainfall. Embankments at vulnerable points are required to protect communities from overflow of river and nullahs in the above mentioned affected areas.
The available machineries and manpower have been deployed for temporary opening of suspended traffic to restore communication with cut-off areas. The quantum of work requires heavy machinery at the disposal of district administration. District administration is in dire need of technical expertise and heavy machinery from National Highway Authority to augment the efforts and resources of Works & Services Department (C&W and PHE). C&W Department Chitral has no approved AOM&R contract agreement for CFY 2015-16, therefore the response to the emergency will be initiated with available machinery and staff with the help of AOM&R Contractors for the last year (2014-15), wherein authorization from KPPRA is required for immediate response to the emergency satiation for deployment of additional resources.
Water supply to Chitral town has not been restored, while temporary arrangement of water supply through water tankers have been carried out. Immediate restoration of water supply channel of Chitral Town is under process.
Irrigation Department has been tasked to immediately start channelization and clearance of debris from Drosh Gol, Kalkatak Gol and Chukidam.
Chief Municipal Officer has been tasked for proper arrangement for drinking water supply from Golen Gol water supply line and start work on Anghar Ghon WSU on emergent basis.
District Administration has started restoration of cut off sites from limited available resources. PDMA has authorized Deputy Commissioner to utilize the relief fund for relief activities. While, Revenue staff has been deputed to the sites for detailed assessments and verification of damages. Director NHA has also visited Chitral and NHA has cleared the main road for traffic.
PDMA is continuously monitoring the situation and is in constant loop with all the stakeholders concern to restore public facilities in the affected areas. PDMA has also entrusted District Administration with the requisite funds for relief activities.