The crisis on the roof of the world

In the summer of 2026, torrential rain and glacial melt tore through Gilgit-Baltistan. In the Tormik area of Rondu, near Skardu, flash floods washed away communication bridges — including the Malan Bridge — cutting whole valleys off from the outside world. Roads, irrigation channels, farmland and homes were destroyed across Kharmang, Ghanche and Shigar, and Pakistan’s Meteorological Department kept a glacial lake outburst flood (GLOF) warning in force for weeks.

This is the paradox of the mountain Global South: too much water and too little, in the same season. Gilgit-Baltistan holds some of the largest glaciers outside the poles — the water towers for the Indus and hundreds of millions of people downstream. As they melt faster, they swell unstable glacial lakes that can burst without warning, while the long-term supply they represent quietly drains away. Alongside the water crisis sits a waste one: floods scatter debris and contaminate drinking supplies, and thin mountain infrastructure has little capacity to manage either.

These communities did least to cause climate change and are among the first to pay for it. That is exactly the story ClimaRevolt exists to tell — and, where we can, to help move from telling to doing.