Austrian climber killed by avalanche in Pakistan.

An Austrian climber has died and two Britons were injured when their tent was hit by an avalanche on the Ultar Sar Peak in the Hunza Valley in Gilgit-Baltistan Province, Pakistan, on Friday 29 June 2018. The three men have been identified as Christian Huber, who died in the incident, plus Bruce Normand and Timothy Miller, who were rescued by a helicopter from the Pakistan Army and are being treated at a hospital in Islamabad. The avalanche occurred at an altitude of 5.9 km and was caused by a storm, which also hampered the rescue attempt. The helicopter crew have been commended for their actions.

Austrian climber Christian Huber who died in an avalanche on Ultra Sar on 29 June 2018. AP.

Ultra Sar forms part of the Karakorum Mountain Range, which runs through Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, Tajikistan and into China. At 7388 m it is not among the higher mountains in the range, but it is one of the most prominent, rising 5300 m above the floor of the Hunza Valley. As such it is of great interest to climbers, though it is considered an extremely difficult and dangerous ascent, with fifteen failed attempts to climb it and numerous fatalities, during the 1980s and 1990s, before the summit was eventually reached by a Japanese team in 1996.

Ultra Sar, right, foreground, with (rght to left) Bojohagur Duanasir, Hunza, and Bumblimotin behind. Wikimedia Commons.

Avalanches are caused by the mechanical failure of snowpacks; essentially when the weight of the snow above a certain point exceeds the carrying capacity of the snow at that point to support its weight. This can happen for two reasons, because more snow falls upslope, causing the weight to rise, or because snow begins to melt downslope, causing the carrying capacity to fall. Avalanches may also be triggered by other events, such as Earthquakes or rockfalls. Contrary to what is often seen in films and on television, avalanches are not usually triggered by loud noises. Because snow forms layers, with each layer typically occurring due to a different snowfall, and having different physical properties, multiple avalanches can occur at the same spot, with the failure of a weaker layer losing to the loss of the snow above it, but other layers below left in place - to potentially fail later.

 Diagrammatic representation of an avalanche, showing how layering of snow contributes to these events. Expedition Earth.

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Flash floods and landslides kill at least 65 in northern Pakistan.

At least sixty five people have died folowing a series of flash floods and landslides in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Azad Kashmir and Gilgit Baltistan Provinces in northern Pakistan on Sunday 3 April 2016. Forty Eight deaths have been confirmed in Azad Kashmir, including twelve in Kohistan District, largely due to landslides and house collapses. Landslides are a common problem after severe weather events, as excess pore water pressure can overcome cohesion in soil and sediments, allowing them to flow like liquids. Approximately 90% of all landslides are caused by heavy rainfall. House collapses are also common following heavy rainfall in the region, largely due to the use of mud-bricks as a building material. Such bricks are a cheap and easily obtainable building material for poorer communities in Pakistan, but fare very badly in wet conditions. Another eight people have been reported dead following a landslide in Sharda District

 Flood waters sweeping through a market in Peshawar, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan. Fayaz Aziz/Reuters.

In Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province ten people are reported to have died in landslides in Shangla District, two women have been confirmed dead after they were caught in a flash flood in Swat District, and Malakand, Mansehra, Upper Dir, Charsadda, and Chitral Districts have each recorded single deaths. In Peshawar Lake Bara Khowar overflowed leading to flooding in that washed away around seventy shops and commercial properties. Nine deaths have been reported in the town of Chilas in Gilgit Baltistan Province, four of them in a single house-collapse incident.

Flooding in Gilgit Baltistan Province, Pakistan, on 4 April 2016. Dawn.

Flooding and landslices are common at this time of year in northern Pakistan, where rising temperatues at the start of summer lead to thawing snow and ice in the mountains of the region. However the area does not typically recieve large amounts of rainfall at this time of year, and the heavy rainfall which has arrived in 2016 has both caught people by surprise and worsened the usual seasonal problems. 

 

The Himalayan provinces of Pakistan are extremely prone to landslides, due to a number of active faults in the area, these being driven by the northward movement of the Indian Plate, which is pushing into Eurasia at a rate of 40 mm a year. This causes earthquakes on both plates, as well as the folding and uplift that has created the Himalayas and the Tibetan Plateau.

 

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