KHOROG, May 27, Asia-Plus  -- A planned drill on taking a complex of practical measures in the case of the possible outburst flood from the Lake Sarez was held in GBAO’s Rushan district on May 19-21.  

Speaking in an interview with Asia-Plus, Gulsha Nasillobekov, the deputy head of the GBAO emergency management agency, said that the main objective of the drill was to ensure preparedness of the population of the Siponj jamoat for the risk of the possible outburst flood from the lake.  

According to him, the drill participants rehearsed practical measures to evacuate the population to safe places provided with food supplies, clothes and tents.   22 “safe islands” for evacuation of the population have been set up in the Rushan district..  

Emergencies officials from districts of Khatlon’s Kulob region observed the drill.   

The Lake Sarez was created in 1911 when an enormous landslide caused by an earthquake in the Pamir Mountain range of Tajikistan blocked the Murgab river valley. The river soon formed a lake approximately 60 km in length, containing close to 17 cubic kilometers of water. The natural dam which retains the lake, named ''Usoi'', is located at an altitude of 3200 meters. With a height of over 550 meters, it is the tallest dam, natural or man-made, in the world.

Lake Sarez, contains 17 km3 of water behind a potentially unstable landslide dam, which is a dire hazard to as many as 5,000,000 people in the Amu Darya River Basin.  Locally, earthquakes, debris flows, landslides, rock-falls, avalanches, and seasonal flooding occur frequently in the mountainous upper basin.

We will recall that the Lake Sarez Risk Mitigation Project has been launched to reduce vulnerability to natural disasters in the valleys of the Bartang and Panj rivers.  The geographic area to be assisted includes (a) the Bartang River Valley and (b) the Panj River Valley from the point of the confluence of the Bartang and Panj Rivers down the Valley to the area where the Panj River flows out from the mountains, near the settlement Moskovsky.  To the extent feasible within time and funding constraints, the project will facilitate outburst flood preparedness in the Panj Valley beyond Moskovsky towards the Uzbek border.