BREAKING NEWS:

“A glacial lake outburst flood (GLOF) has destroyed and swept away the strategically important Hassanabad Bridge on the Karakoram Highway (KKH) in the Hunza district in Gilgit-Baltistan, Pakistan…This bridge was the only main source that connected Gilgit-Baltistan with China via the Karakoram Highway. In Hassanabad, the Karakoram Highway passes over a side stream of the Hunza River, which is fed from the Shishpar Glacier, located about 10 km above Hassanabad.

A GLOF is caused by the sudden emptying of a glacial lake in the high topographic regions like the Karakoram and Himalayas and has the power to destroy everything in its way. It can happen due to erosion, a buildup of water pressure, an avalanche of rock or heavy snow or massive displacement of water in a glacial lake when a large portion of an adjacent glacier collapses into it. An increase in temperature in the form of heatwaves also becomes a serious reason for the GLOF. Pakistan has the highest number of glaciers outside of the polar region and they are melting at an alarmingly high speed due to the climate crisis, increasing global temperatures, resulting in heatwaves and many other forms. It results in GLOF, which causes internal displacements, climate-induced migrations and local instability.“

The above excerpt is from an article titled ‘Climate Crisis: Hassanabad Bridge Collapse Hunza’ by Haider Nazir Chatta, published in May 2022.

The evening of May 6, 2022, hours before the disaster, a festive night of music and dancing had unfolded in Central Hunza. I had been commissioned by a new hotel in Karimabad, Hunza to curate and produce their inaugural event. My team and I planned a musical collaboration between Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa and Gilgit-Baltistan – both regions prominent in their tribal and indigenous musical movements. The world-famous Pashtun band Khumariyaan headlined the evening and Jiill, a contemporary Hunzai band celebrating traditional, spiritual and cultural roots, led by the young master and musicologist, the late Zia Ul Karim, opened the show.

The event was open to the public and attended by concert-goers from across Central Hunza and Gojal. It was a beautiful summer night of rejoicing and camaraderie. Old friends were reunited and new friends were made. I, along with my companions, returned home to Aliabad late after midnight. The summer in Hunza is celestial; the grass is tall and the wildflowers are abundant. Residents maximise the summer by being outdoors at all hours, wearing no more than a single layer of clothing, and embracing the familiarity of the immense dark night and its starry gifts.

It was a very hot summer for this part of the world. We dug up a small, shallow pond in our garden and lined it with stones. On water supply days, we would try to fill the pond and soak in icy water supplied to us from Hassanabad. Over two days, the waterline would slowly recede, naturally nourishing our fruit trees and vegetables. Little did we know that this unusually warm summer would unfold in unimaginable ways.

On May 7, 2022, early in the morning, news spread nearly immediately around the eclectic mountain town of Aliabad. Social workers rushed to the site and law enforcement agents were called into work. Friends and family from South Pakistan who had switched on their TV sets that morning began calling, deeply concerned after news channels began broadcasting terrifying images of the massive Hassanabad bridge collapsing like children’s playing blocks under the majestic and undeniable force of Mother Nature. The band Khumariyaan was due to travel south that same morning and friends who had danced along the night before helped them find alternate routes mid-crisis to make their way out of the Hunza District.

At the time, my son was a student at the Aga Khan School in the village of Murtazabad, a twenty-minute drive from our neighbourhood, southbound on the KKH, past the Hassanabad Bridge and an off-road trek up into the scenic village.

In the days and weeks that followed, we witnessed the complete cessation of the main link from Hunza to the world. Extended school closures, surge pricing, hoarding and a sudden crash of the tourism industry that was waiting for the start of a lucrative summer season. While an unsustainable alternate route existed around the Nagar Valley, it was the last resort.

Hunza, an already faraway Shangri-La, was now landlocked.

Life continued around the closure. That summer, heavy rains lashed across parts of the country, causing landslides, displacement and deaths. It rained non-stop for days; nearly all homes in our neighbourhood had leaking roofs. Afraid of collapses and electric incidents, residents rushed to the market for plastic sheets and tarpaulins to cover traditional mud and wood roofs. A certain-sized sheet, which cost approximately Rs 300, was being sold for anywhere between Rs 600 and Rs 1,200 depending on one’s luck. Daily groceries like vegetables were triple their usual prices; the heavy rains and winds had also damaged the health of the cherry and apricot harvests. Soon after the water supply infrastructure was damaged, there came a point where five-litre bottles of water were being provided to homes as a form of crisis control. Every day we heard a new rumour, a new speculation of when the bridge would be rebuilt. On August 25, 2022, the Government of Pakistan declared a national emergency. Thousands of homes were washed away in several parts of the country, the worst hit being the districts in the provinces of Sindh and Balochistan. The flood has been described as the deadliest and costliest in the country’s history.

For the few travellers who had dared to make their way up despite the uncertainty of weather conditions, landslides and rockfalls, business owners offered the kindest hospitality. The hottest-selling commodity was hotels with cool, air-conditioned rooms. The scarce and sporadic schedule of electricity and rising fuel prices was unforgiving that year. Family run, small and eco-conscious operations struggled with hosting guests or stocking perishables, as it was very warm without regular electricity, uninterrupted refrigeration and air conditioning. Summer, the most lucrative time of the tourist season, became an unpromising start to the year’s plan of sustenance.

In Hunza, slow travel is not so widely consumed all summer. Typically, thousands of domestic and international travellers make their way up to the Hunza Valley. Millions of vehicles travel the Karakoram Highway, bringing tourists in buses, coasters and cars to visit the popular sights – the most popular of all is the Attabad Lake, which itself is the result of a natural disaster. Tour packages for nearly all budgets are available. While travelling to Hunza is generally an expensive proposition, based purely on how remote it is, unrealistically attractive prices for all-inclusive tours are published online.

On the other end of the spectrum, personalised luxury adventures are also curated at higher prices with premium facilities. While almost all categories of service providers are happier to be eco-conscious by actually using less – the tourist must also want to take pride in using less and slowly in order to make a meaningful business exchange happen and encourage a change in the pattern of consumption – without damaging the mountain economy or the environment.

Talking about the patterns and speed of consumption, tourism relatively recovered in 2024. As per the latest reports from the office of Hasnain Iqbal, Superintendent of Police in Hunza, the total number of foreign and domestic travellers who entered the district in 2024 is 18,518 and 230,373. The highest volume of domestic travellers is recorded as 81,352 in July, with October being the most popular for foreign travellers, recorded at 5,475. While one category of travellers is motivated by school holidays, the other is making time to witness the changing seasons.

Travellers are generally mindful and cooperative; however, some sections of travellers, whilst generously contributing to the economy, are resistant to natural foods, mindful living and trying slower, newer things. Packaged foods, juices, crisps and sugary wafers wrapped in shiny foil have made their way over to be consumed quickly and easily in this magic land, slowly eroding the uniqueness of culture and the speed of living with nature, the history of people, memories tied to sharing food, and the legacy of handmade craft.

The Karimabad Bazaar now sells accessories, jewellery, knickknacks, and textiles from all around the region – the buyers’ understanding of handloom versus machine spun, or of the cultural relevance and quality of souvenirs, for instance, is negligible and so is their desire to pay a premium for what is handmade. Anything made artisanally with care is long-lasting; craft accompanies one forever, but fast fashion is quick and cheap; one does not have to fall in love with it. Shopkeepers have caught on. My friend in Karimabad is a seasoned gemmologist and craft trader. He owns and operates one of the oldest shops in the bazaar. Within his shop he has two sections, one for the authentic craft seekers and one for the fast travellers. Business must go on.

Like other family-run businesses, we at Zahira Cottage also strive to reduce food miles as much as possible, eating and serving to our guests what is closely available. Without a set menu in place, we offer meals made from ingredients found on the day, as close to us as possible. Not everyone subscribes to this kind of experimentation and would rather eat what they recognise and know on similar plates offering exactly the same portions and taste, even if pulled out of a freezer after months.

What we put in our mouths and what we touch to our lips carries energy – the kindness by which something was grown, cooked with emotional mindfulness and consumed carefully, bearing in mind that not every bite is meant to be clinically measured and recreated. Food is made up of not only ingredients but also memory and context – how does one remember the great meals of one’s life? Where one ate it, who they were accompanied by, how hungry they were, the colour of the sky above their table and so on. The illusion of safety and comfort in standardised experiences is alarming, especially when it is expected from an otherworldly Shangri-La known for its ancient mountains and the longevity of its people.

We often use solar or flame-lit lamps while serving meals outdoors, savouring the silence and the darkness of the immense night sky. A wise neighbour once told us to enjoy the dark fully, to find the living mysteries in shadows, what it reveals and what it protects. In Hunza, electricity is scarce as it is; using generators to brightly light the evenings not only disregards the sanctity of the shadows but also adds to pollution with noise and fuel exhaust. At a very aesthetically low-lit slow bar in Karimabad, a family of travellers hurriedly eats a slow-cooked meal with the white light of a large cell phone shining above, a spoon in one hand and the phone in the other, hesitant to fully embrace the quietness of the humble plate before them. Restraint is underrated, perhaps.

Junichiro Tanizaki, in his timeless essay ‘In Praise of Shadows’ says, “Darkness causes us no discontent; we resign ourselves to it as inevitable. If light is scarce then light is scarce; we will immerse ourselves in the darkness and there discover its own particular beauty… Why should this propensity to seek beauty in darkness be so strong… Japanese ghosts have traditionally no feet; Western ghosts have feet but are transparent. As even this trifle suggests, pitch darkness has always occupied our fantasies, while in the West even ghosts are clear as glass.’

Hoping for the familiar when making one’s way out to the third pole of this spectral northern world is a misplaced notion. Culture and climate walk hand in hand on a path formed by how the ground is walked on – reflecting off, feeding and unfortunately sometimes starving each other of energy.

The Hassanabad Bridge wasn’t operational for a while. In June 2022, after an entire month of being unable to get to school, I applied to transfer my son to the Aliabad branch, a twenty-minute walk from our home – finding solutions in community, familiarity and close proximity. Camaraderie and empathy are the building blocks of a community, especially one that is at risk of the ongoing climate crisis.

Raania Durrani is a creative director based in Aliabad, Hunza, working in the areas of culture, music and food. Instagram: @raaniadurrani @zahiracottagekitchen @7788.hunza