Pakistan, one of the world’s most disaster-prone nations, lies at the collision zone of the Indian and Eurasian tectonic plates. It hosts the largest concentration of high-altitude glaciers outside the polar regions and endures intense monsoon systems that funnel through fragile mountain valleys. The result is not occasional catastrophe but a continuous cycle of floods, earthquakes, droughts, glacial surges, avalanches, and landslides—events that are seasonal realities rather than anomalies. Yet, despite this well-established risk profile, the institutional response remains entrenched in bureaucratic inertia, often led by political appointees rather than technical experts with field experience.
The recent landslides in Murree, including the devastating slope failure at Jhika Gali Chowk in early April 2026, are a stark reminder of this systemic failure. Families have been displaced, roads severed, and slopes once anchored by deep-rooted conifers have collapsed into flowing masses of red-brown mud. For anyone familiar with the terrain, this was not unforeseen—it was inevitable.
My understanding of these processes is not theoretical. I grew up in the hills above Murree. In the early 1970s, my family cleared conifer stands to establish apple and apricot orchards. An expert from Rawalpindi supervised terrace formation and rock blasting. As a young observer, I witnessed a transformation that left a permanent impression. The removal of trees altered the hydrological balance of the land. Three natural springs, historically regulated by root systems and interlocked rock formations, were disrupted. During the monsoon, the exposed red-purple clay of the Himalayan Siwalik formation—composed of siltstones, shales, and sandstones—became saturated. Instead of providing structural stability, the clay acted as a lubricant. The slope began to move.
From an engineering standpoint, the mechanics are straightforward. Every granular material has an angle of repose—the steepest angle at which it remains stable. Dry coarse gravel maintains stability at approximately 35–40 degrees, while moist sand stabilises at 30–35 degrees. However, clay-rich soils, when fully saturated, lose shear strength dramatically, transforming from a solid mass into a near-fluid medium. The Murree Hills, composed of weak shale interbedded with clay layers, already exist near this critical threshold. When vegetation is removed, infiltration increases; when slopes are cut or blasted, structural integrity is compromised. Under such conditions, landslides are not a possibility—they are engineered outcomes.
Since the 1970s, the scale of anthropogenic disturbance has intensified. Unregulated construction, road cuts exceeding 60 degrees, and widespread deforestation driven by urban expansion have destabilised slopes across Murree, Azad Jammu & Kashmir, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Gilgit-Baltistan, and the broader Hazara region. The Jhika Gali incident is not an isolated tragedy; it is part of a predictable and recurring pattern.
Pakistan’s climate discourse remains dominated by individuals and institutions disconnected from field science
This pattern extends beyond hillslopes into high-altitude glacial systems. On 7 April 2012, a catastrophic ice-rock avalanche struck the Gayari Sector beneath the Saltoro Range along the western flank of the Siachen Glacier. The avalanche buried an entire Pakistani military battalion headquarters, killing 140 soldiers. This was not a conventional snow avalanche but a complex glacial mass movement composed of ice, rock debris, and snow. The failure mechanism was governed by the same principle: when slope angles exceed the angle of repose of accumulated snow and ice, gravitational collapse becomes inevitable.
Understanding such events requires confronting the Karakoram Anomaly—a phenomenon in which glaciers in the Karakoram region are not retreating but, in many cases, advancing, thickening, and even surging. This contradicts the generalised global narrative of uniform glacial retreat under climate change. The anomaly is driven by complex interactions of altitude, precipitation patterns, and orographic effects. It was first rigorously documented through decades of fieldwork by glaciologist Dr Kenneth Hewitt, known as the Guru of Karakoram, and later validated by European research teams.
Complementing this work, the Water and Power Development Authority (WAPDA), in collaboration with Canada’s International Development Research Centre (IDRC), installed high-altitude automated weather stations across the Karakoram beginning in the 1980s and 1990s. These installations were designed to study Indus Basin hydrology and hydropower potential under real field conditions—not theoretical models.
In 2008, drawing on high-resolution satellite images and engineering analysis, I submitted a technical paper to the Federal Flood Commission highlighting abnormal snow accumulation patterns along the western ridge of the Saltoro Range. The warning was explicit: growing glaciers are not stable glaciers. Surging glaciers can advance several metres per day, overriding moraines, blocking drainage channels, and forming ice-dammed lakes. When these lakes fail, they generate glacial lake outburst floods (GLOFs) of immense destructive force. Simultaneously, excessive snow accumulation increases the load on unstable hanging ice masses, elevating avalanche risk for downstream settlements.
Despite this, Pakistan’s climate discourse remains dominated by individuals and institutions disconnected from field science. The reliance on satellite data and generic climate frameworks has replaced the rigorous ground-based research required to understand complex mountain systems. This disconnect is not academic—it is operationally dangerous.
The era of reports without results, funding without field impact, and policies without engineering execution must come to an end
Pakistan’s disaster management framework reflects this deeper institutional failure. Over the past decade, significant international funding has flowed into disaster risk reduction (DRR) through organisations such as the World Bank, Asian Development Bank, United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), and GIZ. These funds, channelled through national bodies and non-governmental organisations, have largely produced reports, workshops, and policy documents rather than measurable field outcomes.
The National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA), established under the 2006 ordinance, created an extensive institutional structure intended to integrate hazard assessment into national planning. In practice, it has evolved into a system focused on administrative expansion rather than technical execution. The National Disaster Risk Management Fund (NDRMF), responsible for managing these resources, exemplifies this issue. Leadership positions have been assigned to individuals with backgrounds in advocacy rather than engineering, geotechnical science, hydrology, or glaciology.
As a result, disaster risk management has been overtaken by practitioners skilled in presentation but lacking field competence. They can produce visually compelling reports and employ donor-friendly terminology. Yet, they cannot design retaining structures for hydrostatic loads, assess moraine dam stability, interpret subsurface drainage conditions, or evaluate glacier dynamics at high altitudes. Their expertise is institutional, not geological.
The consequences are visible across the country. Murree’s slopes continue to fail annually. Gilgit-Baltistan faces recurring GLOF events. No comprehensive technical reassessment followed the Gayari disaster. These are not failures of nature—they are failures of governance within a highly technical domain.
Effective slope stabilisation requires engineering interventions: hydroseeding, geotextiles, contour ploughing, subsurface drainage systems to reduce pore water pressure, and properly designed retaining walls and gabion structures. Road cuts must be limited to safe angles unless reinforced. Blasting operations require pre-blast vibration analysis. Similarly, GLOF mitigation demands instrumentation placed at geologically appropriate elevations, not arbitrarily selected sites.
Pakistan possesses qualified engineers, glaciologists, and hydrologists capable of implementing these solutions. What remains absent is the political will to empower them through the Planning Commission of Pakistan.
Every year, as snowmelt accelerates and monsoon systems intensify, Pakistan re-enters its disaster cycle. Slopes weaken, glaciers destabilise, moraine dams fail, and communities suffer. Meanwhile, institutional responses continue to revolve around reports, consultations, and funding renewals.
The people of Pakistan will continue to bear the consequences until disaster management is led by those with direct field experience and technical expertise. Accountability must be tied to measurable, independently verified outcomes—not documentation.
At its core, this is not merely a failure of policy—it is a failure of accountability. The people of Pakistan, already burdened by mounting national debt and economic hardship, are the ultimate guarantors of every loan secured in the name of development and disaster risk reduction. They have both a moral and constitutional right to know how every dollar of donor funding is being spent—particularly by institutions such as the National Disaster Risk Management Fund (NDRMF) and the Planning Commission.
Transparency in this domain is not optional; it is essential. Every project funded under disaster risk reduction must be traceable, measurable, and verifiable on the ground. The era of reports without results, funding without field impact, and policies without engineering execution must come to an end.
What I can suggest, based on decades of field experience in the Karakoram and Himalayan regions, is not criticism alone but a solution: to set up a real-time monitoring system for all projects undertaken by the NDRMF and the Planning Commission. This system would be rooted in ground-truth verification, integrating field data, geotechnical indicators, and site-level observations to ensure that every funded intervention delivers measurable risk reduction.
Having spent a lifetime in mountainous terrain—monitoring glaciers, studying slope behaviour, and rehabilitating land damaged by major landslides in regions such as Murree—I understand that disaster risk cannot be managed from behind desks. It must be observed, measured, and controlled in the field, where geology, water, and gravity interact in real time.
Pakistan does not lack expertise. It lacks the will to deploy it where it matters most. Until that changes, the burden of inaction will continue to fall on ordinary citizens—those who pay the price not only through taxes and loans, but through lives lost beneath collapsing slopes, advancing ice, and preventable disasters.