Gilgit-Baltistan loses 1,000 households a year to climate disasters, CM says
Amjad Hussain tells the Mountain Women Climate Award 2026 ceremony that glacial outburst floods and flash floods also wreck roads, power houses and schools, costing billions of rupees to repair.
Around 1,000 households in Gilgit-Baltistan are affected every year by glacial lake outburst floods and other climate-related disasters, with homes and crops destroyed and families left to be rehabilitated, Chief Minister Amjad Hussain said on Tuesday.
Speaking as chief guest at the Mountain Women Climate Award 2026 ceremony, Hussain said the pattern has held for several decades and will stay a challenge for years to come, The Express Tribune reported.
"Every year, around a thousand households are affected, houses and crops are destroyed, and the government faces the difficult phase of rehabilitating and resettling the affected families," he said.
The chief minister said Gilgit-Baltistan sits where three of the world's major mountain ranges meet and holds close to 8,000 glaciers. Many settlements lie downstream of those glaciers, he said, where outbursts and sudden floods can damage entire villages.
"The glaciers of Gilgit-Baltistan are a vital water reservoir for the whole of Pakistan, and joint and practical steps at national and international levels are indispensable for their protection," he said, calling for coordinated efforts inside the country and abroad.
Damage goes beyond homes and farmland. Hussain said roads, power houses, schools and colleges are also hit, and that billions of rupees are spent every year putting them back into use. That spending, he said, adds to the pressure on the region's limited development resources.
He said that until recently no dedicated institution existed to protect the glaciers or to study the risks they carry. The Glacier Protection Authority has been established in response to that gap.
Hussain also called for a scientific assessment of how climate change is affecting glaciers at different altitudes, so that protective measures can be based on those findings rather than on general assumptions.
The chief minister has spoken before about the load climate damage places on Gilgit-Baltistan's budget, describing the recurring cost of rebuilding as one of the region's persistent difficulties.
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