It was a routine day, and 26-year-old Muntazer Mehdi had performed his mid-afternoon prayers. Then, after lunch, the mountains started growling.
The tailor, who lived in Chogogrung village at the foothills of the Siachen glacier – the world’s second-largest non-polar glacier – knew what he had to do: Run.
Mehdi, his wife and their two children had to flee their home in late July after glacial melting led to a lake outburst. “We knew what was coming because of how loud the clanking of the rocks was, and the water stream stopped,” he said. “We had just enough time to make it to a higher elevation and save ourselves, but all our life savings, home, livestock, it’s all gone, wiped out in a few moments.”
Mehdi and his family walked nearly 100km (60 miles) to the next village and from there hitched a car ride to get to Skardu, the largest city in the area.
Theirs is one of many similar stories to have emerged in recent weeks from Gilgit-Baltistan, a part of Pakistan-administered Kashmir where floods have submerged entire villages, especially in Ghizer district.
Pakistan is facing a multitude of climate emergencies – its forests are shrinking, glaciers are melting faster than anticipated, and now catastrophic rains are devastating communities.
Rampant deforestation has eroded natural buffers, while warming mountain temperatures weaken glaciers, destabilising landscapes and exposing people to landslides and floods.
Glacier outburst flood blocked Ghizer river, put residents living near bank of the river at risk, the stranded people in flood managed to cross, flood damaged Talidas village. pic.twitter.com/FsYbvDxL8f
— Jamil Nagri (@jamilnagri) August 22, 2025
These intersecting threats have collided this year as the monsoon rains and rare cloudbursts have slammed northern regions like Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Pakistan-administered Kashmir.
The water has then pushed downstream, creating havoc in other parts of Pakistan too – the damage amplified by the construction of residential societies near river banks and over flood plains in recent decades.
In this year’s monsoon, since June 26, at least 804 people have died, a majority of them in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
What’s happening to Pakistan’s glaciers?
A study by EvK2CNR, an Italian nonprofit that focuses on scientific research in high-mountain environments, in 2024 revealed that Pakistan is home to 13,032 glaciers, which cover 13,546.93 square kilometres (5,230 square miles) across the basins of the Gilgit, Indus, Jhelum, Kabul and Tarim rivers.
Pakistan has the largest volume of glacial ice for any country outside polar regions.
Uniquely, the meeting point of three major mountain ranges, the Hindu Kush, the Himayalas and the Karokaram lies in Pakistan-administered Kashmir.
Glacial ice is also a major source of water for Pakistan’s 220 million people.
The International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD), a consortium of regional countries that the Hindu Kush and Himalaya mountain ranges span, conducted a study that indicates that the Hindu Kush and Himalayan glaciers disappeared 65 percent faster in the 2011-2020 period than in the previous decade.
According to Zakir Hussain Zakir, the director of planning and development at University of Baltistan, the rate of melting is 10-30 metres (33-100ft) per year in the Himalayas, 5-10 metres (16-33ft) in the Hindu Kush, and 2-3 metres (7-10ft) in the Karokaram. Glacial ice is melting faster than new snow can replenish, as summers get longer.
“The melting has accelerated due to global warming, where Pakistan remains a small contributor,” says Dawar Hameed Butt, principal adviser of Climate Action Pakistan (CFP).
This warming has set in motion a dangerous cycle: Higher temperatures accelerate glacier melt, which exposes darker rocky surfaces.
“These surfaces, in turn, absorb more heat, further speeding up the melting process. We are now witnessing these feedback loops unfold,” he said.
Zakir Hussain, director general of the Provincial Disaster Management Authority in Pakistan-administered Kashmir (Gilgit-Baltistan) – no relation to the University of Baltistan academic – says the effect of carbon emission can be seen in real time.
“Our elders used to say, in our traditional ways, that by August 15, glacier melting would stop and snow would start packing in. Now, because of climate change, the glaciers are melting faster and longer.”
For decades, valley communities have shaped their practices around the expectation of stable glaciers, but that assumption is no longer reliable. The quicker movement of glaciers is also loosening the rocky terrain around them, increasing the risk of large-scale landslides.
Zakir of the University of Baltistan says increased tourism and construction have contributed to glacial melting: Since 2005, when Skardu’s runway was expanded, large planes have been able to ferry travellers to the region daily. Pakistan’s state carrier, Pakistan International Airlines, previously relied on smaller Fokker planes for daily flights to Gilgit, weather permitting.
“Increased air traffic in the region is considered a key cause of melting glaciers,” Zakir says.
Hussain of PDMA refutes this and says, “There is no industry in Gilgit-Baltistan; we produce little or no carbon emissions and are at the receiving end of it.”
What’s happening to Pakistan’s forests?
Pakistan’s topography spans high mountains, fertile plains, deserts, and river valleys, with sharp contrasts between arid and glaciated zones.
According to European Space Agency WorldCover, about 2.72 percent of the land is covered by snow and ice, the largest concentration outside the polar regions. These glaciers feed the Indus River system, which supports nearly 90 percent of the country’s agriculture.
Forests cover only 5.23 percent of land, offering limited protection against erosion and floods.
The monsoon delivers nearly three-quarters of South Asia’s annual rainfall, vital for Pakistan’s crops. But over the past decade, cloudbursts and heavier rains have triggered flash floods and landslides with increasing frequency.
According to Global Forest Watch, a forest monitoring digital platform, from 2001 to 2024, Pakistan lost 95.3sq km (9.53 kilohectares) of forest cover – roughly half the area of Islamabad, the country’s capital city.
Why are the trees cut?
According to Global Forest Watch, Pakistan is losing tree cover due to both permanent deforestation and temporary disturbances.
From 2001 to 2024, Pakistan lost nearly 8 percent of its tree cover.
At least 78% (6,870 hectares) of tree cover loss was due to logging, followed by wildfires, at 12% (1,080 hectares), permanent agriculture (492 hectares), temporary disturbances like natural disasters (184 hectares) and new settlements and infrastructure (179 hectares).
Ahmed Kamal, the additional secretary of Khyber-Pakhtunkwa’s forest department, says the province’s forests have fallen victim to government policies.
Until the 1990s, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa allowed a practice known as “scientific harvesting” – which involved the selective felling of old or diseased trees so forests could regenerate. But amid allegations that the timber mafia, in connivance with forest department officials, was misusing the system, the federal government imposed a blanket ban on cutting trees.
This, Kamal said, “has instead driven illegal logging and worsened deforestation”.
According to Kamal, the state-imposed ban has hurt forest-dependent communities, once entitled to 40-80 percent of royalties from legal harvesting. Deprived of income, many turned to illegal logging, often cutting young trees.
This has eaten into Pakistan’s valuable deodar reserves. Deodar is known for its fragrance and durability. The wood has insect-repellant and anti-bacterial properties, and is valuable for medical extract and essential oils.
But Adil Zareef, the convener of Sustainable Conservation Network (SCN), a nongovernmental organisation, says in practice, a caretaker government that ruled Khyber Pakhtunkhwa from January 2023 to March 2024 handed over what are known as “Guzara forests” to real estate developers. The caretaker government was in office after the provincial assembly was dissolved. Guzara forests are managed by local tribes or individuals that hold traditional rights over the land, and the forest department.
Butt of Climate Action Pakistan told Al Jazeera that deforestation was creating “the conditions for uncontrollable water run-off, leaving structures and communities defenceless”.
In districts in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, such as Buner and Swabi, deluges dropped more than 150mm (6 inches) of rain in an hour, triggering flash floods and landslides that destroyed infrastructure and swept away entire villages.
Is this affecting other parts of Pakistan?
As flood water cascades downstream, it is combining with unprecedented rains in northern Punjab to submerge the heart of Pakistan’s industrial belt. Sialkot city in Punjab, for instance, was hit with over 360mm of rainfall in 24 hours on Wednesday, breaking a 49-year record, according to the Pakistan Meteorological Department (PMD).
Nearly 75km (50 miles) away, the revered Kartarpur Gurdwara, which is connected by a corridor for Sikh pilgrims from India, stood almost entirely submerged on Wednesday. Pakistani officials have accused India of exacerbating the floods by releasing torrents of water from upriver dams, but India has rejected the charge, arguing that it was only following normal release practices.
Indian aggression highly condemned. Under conspiracy, suddenly a huge quantity of water released into rivers by India, resulting in severe flooding in Pakistan.The entire Kartarpur area has been submerged. Land of Guru Nanak is totally under water. pic.twitter.com/WeqVr7sTsx
— Senator Krishna Kumari (@KeshooBai) August 27, 2025
As Pakistan’s limited dams and reservoirs, too, reach full capacity, the risk of further floods, destruction and damage continues. The monsoon isn’t over – neither is its devastation.
Additional reporting from Peshawar by Ghulam Dastageer
