24 Apr 2010

BHUTAN / GLACIAL DANGER

Dowchu Dukpa, an engineer at the Bhutanese Ministry of Geology and Mines, races against time to save Bhutan’s villages from the growing danger of a Glacial Lake Outburst Flood. UNTV

Posted at: April 24, 2010 12:01 pm

Duration: 08:30

Available in: SD

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Full script

STORY: BHUTAN / GLACIAL DANGER 
TRT: 8.30
SOURCE: 21ST CENTURY
RESTRICTIONS: NONE
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH / DZONGKHA / NATS

DATELINE: OCTOBER 2009, BHUTAN / FILE

OCTOBER 2009, BHUTAN

SHOTLIST:

1. 	Various shots, misty clouds moving over landscape 
2. 	Various shots, Bhutan's rugged landscape
3. 	Med shot, red flag
4. 	Wide shot, swirling clouds over mountain
5. 	Med shot, Buddhist monks crossing landscape 
6.  	Various shots, green countryside
7. 	Wide shot, farmers working the field
8. 	Wide shot, Bhutan's capital, Thimphu
9. 	Med shot, monk walking Thimphu's streets
10. Med shot, children spinning a prayer wheel
11.	Various shots, school children in gardens 
12. Various shots, archers
13. Wide shot, aerial view of Thimphu 
14. Various shots, Dzongpon Ugey, Bhutanese farmer, and family
15. Various shots, verdant landscape
16. SOUNDBITE (Dzongkha) Dzongpon Ugey, Bhutanese farmer:
"My income is from agriculture only, and no other source. Rice, wheat, cabbage, and chilies. We feed ourselves and sell the surplus."
17. Various shots, farmers harvesting crops
19. Various shots, mountain peaks and glaciers
20. Wide shot, man walking in rocky river bed
21. Wide shot, small stone dropping into lake
22. SOUNDBITE (English) Dowchu Dupka, Engineer with the Bhutanese Ministry of Geology and Mines:
"I think people term it as the tsunami form the sky. And that will happen if we don't do restoration work now. If this whole glacier melts, which it will do in the course of time that could create a worst-case scenario."
23. Various shots, Dzongpon Ugey in his house
24. Wide shot, Dzongpon Ugey's house
25. Wide shot, river bend
26. SOUNDBITE (Dzongkha) Dzongpon Ugey, Bhutanese farmer:
"When I built this house two years ago, no experts from the outside had ever visited this area and so I was not aware of the dangers of flooding. Now that I know the danger, I really regret building it here."
27. Various shots, women making tapestries
28. Wide shot, river bend
29. SOUNDBITE (Dzongkha) Karma, Bhutanese village resident:
"When it comes to myself, I may be able to run away but we worry for our elderly relatives who may not be in a apposition to escape immediately. When they talk about the likely chance of a lake bursting, I am terrified."
30. Various shots, Karma and her mother working in garden
31.	SOUNDBITE (Dzongkha) Karma, Bhutanese village resident:
"When the flood came, I had corn growing here. And this was the level of the water, here. That night, I was very afraid to tie my cows in case the waters rose and drowned them. We did not sleep the whole night- we just kept watching the level of the river."

FILE – FOOTAGE OF 1994 FLOOD IN BHUTAN

32. Various shots, the 1994 flood

OCTOBER 2009, BHUTAN

33. SOUNDBITE (English) Dowchu Dupka, Engineer with the Bhutanese Ministry of Geology and Mines:
"It seems we are the first country in the entire world to implement a climate change adaptation program."
34. Various shots, Dowchu Dupka climbing up mountain with engineering team
35. Med shot, man calling workers into base camp
36. Wide shot, base camp
37. Various shots, workers moving rocks 
38. SOUNDBITE (English) Dowchu Dupka, Engineer with the Bhutanese Ministry of Geology and Mines:
"Basically they are pulling the bigger boulders. They are dragging with the help of rope. They are using hammers to break those larger boulders and then those pick axes to dig the naturals out. They have lowered this level by 47 centimeters."
39. Med shot, river rapids
40. Wide shot, bridge crossing river
41. SOUNDBITE (English) Dasho Dzongdag, Governor of the Punakha district and the valley of the Pho Chu River:
"We hope for the best and prepare for the worst. We have appointed focal persons in every village, every settlement beginning from the source 'til down the land. And we have supplied them with telecommunications facilities and mobiles."
42. Various shots, local shop
43. Various shots, monks crossing pedestrian bridge over gorge
44. Various shots, technicians taking measurements
45. SOUNDBITE (English) Dowchu Dupka, Engineer with the Bhutanese Ministry of Geology and Mines:
"The plan is to install sensors at the source here as well as a little bit further downstream that would give enough lead time for the settlements or for the people to evacuate."
46. Various shots, streams
47. Various shots, Bhutan landscape
48. Various shots, hydroelectric power plant
49. SOUNDBITE (English) Dowchu Dupka, Engineer with the Bhutanese Ministry of Geology and Mines:
"As we are entering the 21st Century, hydropower seems to be the driving engine of our economy. The climate change process is posing enormous threats to the livelihood and also the infrastructure downstream."
48. Various shots, Farmers downstream
49. Wide shot, farmers walking into town
50. Various shots, Dzongpon Ugey and other townsfolk gathering for Buddhist festival
51. SOUNDBITE (Dzongkha) Dzongpon Ugey, Bhutanese farmer:
"As the old Bhutanese saying goes, "Your real enemy is fire or water"- nobody can defeat them. It is our fate and we have to live with it."
52. Wide shot, of Bhutanese river valley and towns

STORYLINE:

For centuries, the tiny Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan has been cloaked in mysteries as dense as the clouds that swirl around its mountain peaks. In fact, until the 1970s, the borders of this Buddhist country were closed to outsiders.

Today, Bhutan's lush valleys are home to a people whose traditions remain uniquely intact in a globalized and interconnected world. Even in the urban environment of Bhutan's capital city, Thimphu, national costume is the preferred dress for most. And school children learn respect for the environment by starting their days in class-gardens rather than classrooms.

Bhutan stands alone as the only country in the world where the Gross National Happiness of its people is deemed more important than the Gross Domestic Product. But high up in the mountains lurks a danger that could obliterate Bhutan's thriving villages and verdant countryside.

SOUNDBITE (Dzongkha) Dzongpon Ugey, Bhutanese farmer:
"My income is from agriculture only, and no other source. Rice, wheat, cabbage, and chilies. We feed ourselves and sell the surplus."

The growing threat to Dzongpon Ugey and many other Bhutanese farmers like him lies up in the Himalayas, where the glaciers are melting as global temperatures rise. Bhutan, despite having few cars and no heavy industry, is facing a potential calamity.

As Bhutan's glaciers melt, melt water will spill over into more than 2,600 glacial lakes. Some, like Thorthormi Lake, are in imminent danger of bursting.

SOUNDBITE (English) Dowchu Dupka, Engineer with the Bhutanese Ministry of Geology and Mines:
"I think people term it as the tsunami form the sky. And that will happen if we don't do restoration work now. If this whole glacier melts, which it will do in the course of time that could create a worst-case scenario."

While Thorthormi Lake is held in place by a narrow barrier of ice and moraine at the glacier's tip, the rising lake and thinning of the ice-wall itself are placing the barrier under ever-increasing pressure. Should it burst, a wall of water would surge through the valley.

SOUNDBITE (Dzongkha) Dzongpon Ugey, Bhutanese farmer:
"When I built this house two years ago, no experts from the outside had ever visited this area and so I was not aware of the dangers of flooding. Now that I know the danger, I really regret building it here."

Even Karma, another valley resident living further down river from Ugey, is concerned.

SOUNDBITE (Dzongkha) Karma, Bhutanese village resident:
"When it comes to myself, I may be able to run away but we worry for our elderly relatives who may not be in a apposition to escape immediately. When they talk about the likely chance of a lake bursting, I am terrified."

Karma remembers the devastation caused by an earlier flash flood that swept through the valley in 1994, killing 28 people and devastating Karma's corn fields and garden.

SOUNDBITE (Dzongkha) Karma, Bhutanese village resident:
"When the flood came, I had corn growing here. And this was the level of the water, here. That night, I was very afraid to tie my cows in case the waters rose and drowned them. We did not sleep the whole night- we just kept watching the level of the river."

If the lake at Thorthormi Glacier bursts, the wall of water could be three times higher than in the 1994 flood. But the Bhutanese government is rushing into action an innovative project aimed at taking pressure off the moraine barrier and reducing the water level in Thorthormi Lake.

SOUNDBITE (English) Dowchu Dupka, Engineer with the Bhutanese Ministry of Geology and Mines:
"It seems we are the first country in the entire world to implement a climate change adaptation program."

Engineer Dowchu Dupka is the manager of the Thorthormi Lake project, staffed by more than 300 local men and women. Last summer, they spent three months at the 5,000-meter high lake working to lower the lake level by five meters to protect the Bhutanese inhabitants below in the valley. Picking away at boulders and carting off rocks, they began carving out a drainage channel to release water gradually from the lake.

SOUNDBITE (English) Dowchu Dupka, Engineer with the Bhutanese Ministry of Geology and Mines:
"Basically they are pulling the bigger boulders. They are dragging with the help of rope. They are using hammers to break those larger boulders and then those pick axes to dig the naturals out. They have lowered this level by 47 centimeters."

Despite their work, downstream inhabitants need to be prepared. Dasho Dzongdag, the Governor of the Punakha district, and the valley of the Pho Chu River, has put a rudimentary early-warning system in place help people save themselves in the worst-case scenario.

SOUNDBITE (English) Dasho Dzongdag, Governor of the Punakha district and the valley of the Pho Chu River:
"We hope for the best and prepare for the worst. We have appointed focal persons in every village, every settlement beginning from the source 'til down the land. And we have supplied them with telecommunications facilities and mobiles."

Nonetheless, a plan to install a high-tech automated early-warning system that can detect dangerous rises in lake levels is in the works.

SOUNDBITE (English) Dowchu Dupka, Engineer with the Bhutanese Ministry of Geology and Mines:
"The plan is to install sensors at the source here as well as a little bit further downstream that would give enough lead time for the settlements or for the people to evacuate."

Water is an intrinsic part of Bhutanese life. Called "white gold" by the Bhutanese, it supports Bhutan's agriculture and generates hydroelectric power. If the glaciers melt, even greater long-term problems will afflict Bhutan.

SOUNDBITE (English) Dowchu Dupka, Engineer with the Bhutanese Ministry of Geology and Mines:
"As we are entering the 21st Century, hydropower seems to be the driving engine of our economy. The climate change process is posing enormous threats to the livelihood and also the infrastructure downstream."

As life continues peacefully in this mountainous country, Bhutan's inhabitants address their concerns about the looming glacial danger through their Buddhist spirituality.

SOUNDBITE (Dzongkha) Dzongpon Ugey, Bhutanese farmer:
"As the old Bhutanese saying goes, "Your real enemy is fire or water"- nobody can defeat them. It is our fate and we have to live with it."