Four women and a four-year-old boy have been killed in the Shounter Pass disaster in northern Pakistan, police say.
At least 11 people have been killed after members of a nomad tribe were hit by an avalanche as they traveled through a mountainous area in northern Pakistan, the country’s disaster relief agency said.
“Such incidents are on the rise in Pakistan because of the impacts of climate change,” Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said in a statement on Saturday.
Pakistan, which has experienced record monsoon rains and melting glaciers in the northern mountains in recent years, is among the top 10 countries at risk of natural disasters due to rising temperatures.
Sharif called on the international community to assume its responsibility to save developing countries facing economic challenges from the adverse effects of climate change.
The incident took place near the Shounter Pass which connects the Gilgit-Baltistan region to Pakistan-administered Kashmir.
Gilgit Baltistan, also known as the land of glaciers, has often experienced avalanches and snowslides due to ice melting in recent years.
Senior police officer Ziarat Ali told The Associated Press news agency that four women and a four-year-old boy were among the dead.
The nomads were carrying their herds of goats on foot from the Kel area of Azad Kashmir to Astore when they got caught in the avalanche of snow in the early hours of the morning, Ali said.
The bodies of the victims have been recovered, the disaster response service said. It added that 13 injured people, including a child, were taken to a local hospital in critical condition.
Rescue officer Subah Khan told AFP news agency that the group consisted of about 35 nomads in total. Initial assessments suggested that up to 15 head of cattle also died.
The Shounter Pass, which is located at 4,420 meters (14,501 feet) above sea level, connects the Astore district of the Gilgit-Baltistan region with the adjacent Kashmir valley.
Severe weather conditions complicated the rescue operation and made access to the remote location difficult. Residents spearheaded the rescue operation in the hard-to-reach area, Muhammad Riaz, a police official from the area, told AFP.
Chief Minister of Gilgit Baltistan Khalid Khurshid declared a state of emergency in the hospitals of the main cities in the area, Gilgit and Skardu.
Rising temperatures are rapidly melting glaciers in Pakistan’s northern mountain ranges, resulting in the formation of 3,044 glacial lakes in Gilgit Baltistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa provinces, according to the United Nations.
The country experienced flash floods in the summer of 2022 that killed more than 1,700 people and affected 33 million people.