As in #10 in this series, you are looking at a photo which illustrates the power of the Shyok River.
By road, we were now 35 minutes further upstream, closer to Khaplu.
At 4.49 pm on 15 May 2024, the fast-flowing, largely glacier-fed river’s flow was relatively low.
The Shyok’s width, depth and flow-rate are hugely variable; the river transported and deposited all of the photograph’s silt, sand, gravel and rocks.
My telephoto lens zoomed in on just a very small portion of what my naked eyes could see in a single glance, with head still.
One translation of the Shyok’s name: river of death.
Its floods have killed many people, drowned trees and crops too, and destroyed/removed many formerly-arable fields, even some of the houses that had been built above and behind the fields, on what used to be “safe” ground.
July and August 2024 proved especially devastating, as detailed and explained by Ijlal Haider in The Pamir Times.
His report’s opening paragraph:
In the wake of severe climate change, the lives in mountain communities are becoming vulnerable with each passing day. The rising temperatures in Gilgit Baltistan are accelerating glacier melt, intensifying the river flow, and increasing GLOF (Glacial Lake Outburst Flood) events.
Click here for the full article.
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