24 May 2010

A further update on Attabad

Posted by Dave Petley

Important update: a combined Focus and FWO team have now resurveyed the freeboard and have agreed that there correct freeboard figure was 11.5 feet (3.5 metres) this morning.  This means that overtopping is likely to be a few more days away, although failure could still occur at any time.

NDMA have now released their daily report for yesterday, so I have replotted the freeboard graph (see note above):

You will see that there has been further divergence between the Focus and the NDMA data, with NDMA still reporting 2.01 metres of freeboard, and representing a decrease of freeboard of just 43 cm in 24 hours.  On that basis, the overtopping may still be a few days away.  It should be noted here that the NDMA freeboard was physically measured, whilst the Focus figure was estimated from a distance.  On that basis it may well be that the NDMA data are more reliable.

NDMA have now suspended freeboard measurements, quite rightly, so we are all in the dark from here-on.