WINTER’S SNOW STORM TOOK INNOCENT LIVES IN MURREE

By: Hassan Zubair

Since Pakistan is known for being blessed with four seasons, autumn, spring, Fall & Winters but each season takes its toll. This time winters broke all the records in our history.  people died, including kids. The most popular resorts in the area didn’t help those people who were forced to spend overnight in their cars. The snowstorm forced temperature to plummet so fast that it seemed very dramatic officials shared.

A Police Officer Atiq Ahmed shared that mostly people died due to Hypothermia, which is the condition when human body is exposed to really drastic cold temperature, amongst which was one of his fellow police officer with his family of seven members.

According to Interior Minister Sheikh Rashed Ahmed thousands of cars were trapped on the famous Murree hill resorts .At least 4 feet (one meter) of snow-falling happened overnight between last Friday 14^th and Saturday 15^th. Umer Maqbool the assistant Commissioner for the town of Murree claimed the the heavy machinery brought to get the snow out of the way were stuck initial due to severe storm. The temperature dropped to minus 8 to minus 16 degree Celsius at night.

Officials claimed that the mountains where military residencies were situated, cleared first thing .However on calling upon, many troops and a special Unit for Mountains came in for help and pulled out thousands of cars to be on their way .However many in fact thousands were still stuck in the area.

Mostly people were stuck because of the inhumane act of the resort owners. When they saw that people had no way out of such severe storm they increased their night’s rent to an unbelievable level. Some resort owners were asking for Rs 70,000 per night and mostly were asking for Rs 50,000 which is an amount normally a person with his family of four or five members, bring to stay a week in Murree regarding a tour to Murree hill resorts with regular rates that are normal and affordable. What forced the people to get stuck in their cars was this inhumane act of resort owners .It is obvious that the officials of the town didn’t share that with our iPak officials like they should have, but since they were more concerned about the reputation of those owners, since they are friends with them or partners in some areas when it comes to providing services to the tourists, they thought it to be irrelevant to share it with the Officials of iPak and other new agents. People kept complaining and made videos for what was happening in between those nights of Friday, Saturday and Sunday .People were stuck in their cars for whole weekend. Somehow they helped themselves and hung in there.

The military troops that came to help indeed helped as much as they could since they converted the government or military owned schools and resorts available for people .They provided them with food and shelter. They helped as much people as they could. Emergency situation was handled by the military troops professionally unexpected since they gave food and blankets to the cars stuck in ice. Most of people were aware of keeping their car exhausts clear at all times, from snow, and with the heaters on, the door windows down.

Most of the people didn’t knew and the ones who weren’t aware of this were made aware of these instructions by the troops. Otherwise they would have died due to carbon monoxide .A lot of people who didn’t got the chance of getting to be made aware of this died because of this poisonous gas, filled in the car, because of the heaters on for a long period of time with closed windows and the car exhaust covered with ice. The gas (carbon monoxide) filled in the car and it took only minute in a half to take lives of ten men 10 children and 12 women. People who didn’t have the chance of being part of that help provided by the military troops couldn’t complain since there was no one to blame but themselves.

Located 46 kilometers from the capital ,Murree is the most famous hill area where millions of tourists visit annually .This time the climate took the best of them quite severely I might add since this time the snow that filled the streets of Murree was a feet deep and it took many innocent lives.

They were the ones who brought themselves there to enjoy with their families. Who knew they’d face such monotonous weekend. Although such climate severity was unexpected and that took many lives. 22 lives were reported to be dead for sure but our Officials claim that many unlucky ones didn’t even have the chance of being reported after their deaths. There is in fact a video viral on social media of a lady being pulled out of snow after 6 hours .It was miraculous how she survived but when your time is not it then it’s not it. May ALLAH ALMIGHTY help those who need help, always, AMEEN.