Today, high above the rocky Bindu “Gol” or valley in Chitral, which is located on the way to Mastuj, lies the manmade Bindu glacier. “This was an artificially seeded glacier that was made in 1840 by our forefathers”, explains Siraj, a local villager. “There was no water in our area and so they decided to grow a glacier a hundred feet above the settlement”. He says there is no one left in the village with the knowledge of how to grow a glacier today, but in the past they heard that “cow manure, salt and straw” were combined to “plant” the glacier. “It took three years for it to grow into a glacier and then it kept growing”. Now it is so big that there was a Glacial Lake Outburst Flood (GLOF) in August 2010, which ended up blocking the Chitral River below the valley for twelve hours since so much debris had come down with the flood.

Full story: http://dawn.com/2012/11/25/earthly-matters-planted-glacier-now-threatens-valley/

The GLOF from the Bindu glacier damaged orchards and fields