Combating with avalanche disasters using Google earth - a case study of Gyari sector avalanche in Pakistan

Abstract

Snow avalanches are highly lethal disasters due to their sudden occurrence and impacts. In Pakistan, a similar incident was occurred at Gyari Sector on 07 April 2012 at 2:00 a.m. killing 140 people. A study was conducted to monitor the major causes of such huge human losses, as well as to provide suggestions for future preventive measures. Pakistan, being Alpine glacier and Snowpack resource rich country, always requires proper monitoring, map ping and estimation of these avalanche prone areas for better planning and decision making. Environmental monitoring and mapping of all these very important areas of natural resources, can easily be addressed with advanced technologies of Remote Sensing a nd GIS. In the present study, free satellite images as well as DEM of Google Earth were utilized as the major data source to investigate Gyari Sector avalanche incident. Besides this, 3D Profiling utility of Google Earth was used for tracking potential ava lanche paths and their slopes. It was noted that the Gyari Sector infrastructure was established exactly in the line of an avalanche path. The path of this avalanche which had smashed out all the buildings, people, and other infrastructure, was thoroughly investigated using Google Earth utilities. The slope of this avalanche path was calculated to be 37.27 o , which falls under the maximum danger zone limit of avalanche occurrence. Alternate future options for installation of necessary infrastructure in the a djoining areas are also proposed in this study. Moreover, possible pre - emptive measures to retaining the existing site are also discussed. Remote Sensing and GIS techniques, in general, and Google Earth techniques, in particular, are found to be very usefu l in monitoring and mapping avalanche disasters as well as for their combatting efforts.