As unprecedented snowfall thawed at a popular Pakistan mountain resort on Sunday, rescued tourists were found reckoning with the deaths of 22 fellow travellers in a frozen traffic jam.
© Aamir QURESHI Stuck in their cars overnight after a blizzard in Pakistan, 22 people died from the cold or carbon monoxide poisoning from exhaust fumes
© Provided by AFP Twenty-two people died in an enormous traffic jam caused by tens of thousands of visitors thronging a Pakistani hill town to see unusually heavy snowfall
"We didn't get any type of alert from society, from the government, from Google, from the news, from the weather," said 18-year-old Duaa Kashif Ali, a tourist from Islamabad.
"Locals helped us," she told AFP, after emerging from a guesthouse where she waited out the worst snowstorm witnessed by Murree in decades.
The mountain-perch town -- 70 kilometres (45 miles) northeast of Islamabad -- has long been a favourite for tourists, who swarmed to see vistas dusted with fresh snowfall this week.
© Aamir QURESHI The mountain-perch town of Murree has long been a favourite for tourists who swarmed to see vistas dusted with fresh snowfall this week
Roads were jammed with traffic from some 100,000 visitors when a blizzard dumped four feet (1.2 metres) of snow from Friday onwards.
Stuck in their cars overnight, 22 people died from the cold or carbon monoxide poisoning from exhaust fumes. Among them were 10 children
.
© Aamir QURESHI Many Pakistanis complained on social media that hoteliers had pushed up prices to capitalise on stranded customers, prompting them to sleep in cars
"People here were literally weeping... when they heard," recalled 47-year-old tourist Kashif Ishaq.
As he spoke, a convoy of hulking heavy machinery cleared the ice-bitten roads behind him, ending two days of snowbound isolation for the satellite village of Ratti Gali.
Ishaq arrived here with his daughter Duaa Kashif Ali on Friday night.
Alongside 13 other family members and friends, they ditched three stranded cars and hiked 1.5 kilometres (1 mile) to where a guesthouse owner took them in.
"The locals really helped us," said Ishaq.
"They offered their services, they offered their homes, they offered their restaurants and hotels free of charge."
- A 'natural' disaster -
In nearby Kuldana, about 5,000 people were taken in at the Army School of Logistics on Friday night.
"It was like a natural disaster," said Major Muhammad Umar. "There was no electricity, no gas, no telephone, nothing working."
Eleven-year-old Arosh Yasir, warming up by a gas fire with his family, said they spent the night in their car on Friday before being rescued the following morning.
"Our food was cold and there was no way back or forward," he told AFP.
"I started crying and praying."
Many Pakistanis complained on social media that hoteliers had pushed up prices to capitalise on stranded customers, prompting them to sleep in cars.
Arosh said on Saturday hotels were "either very expensive or had no space", forcing them into the army camp.
On Sunday afternoon, the rescue effort had largely morphed to a repair and salvage operation, aided by steady sunshine winnowing away snowdrifts.
Workmen clambered mountainside pylons to knock free iced electricity wires, whilst others crowded around open car bonnets trying to coax engines back to life.
Some vehicles still remained abandoned under vast snowbanks, forcing ploughs to slalom the precarious mountain tracks.
Among clear spots in the ice were small scatterings of empty water bottles and snackfood packaging, marking where many tourists spent Friday night in their cars.
"It was my worst experience," said 21-year-old Aafia Ali, a visitor from Karachi among the party taking shelter at Ratti Gali.
Several Pakistani newspapers published scathing articles on Sunday, attacking authorities for failing to close off the area despite ample warning of heavy snow.
That sentiment was shared among those preparing to make their way off the mountain.
"The management of this area, they are responsible for this," said Aafia Ali.
jts/ecl/dva
AFP
Up to 1,000 vehicles stranded, at least 21 dead amid Pakistan snowstorm
By Adam Douty, AccuWeather & Coburn Swem, Accuweather.com
Pakistani army soldiers take part in rescue works after tourists died amid heavy snowfall in Murree, Pakistan, on Saturday. Photo by Pakistan Inter Services Public Relations/EPA-EFE
At least 21 people are dead after a heavy snowfall in northern Pakistan on Friday.
The snow trapped approximately 1,000 vehicles in and around the town of Murree, according to the BBC.
At least 10 children are apparently among the dead.
Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan tweeted that he was "shocked" and that the government would be ordering an inquiry into the incident.
Local authorities have declared the region a disaster zone and a special military mountain unit was called in to help.
More than 4 feet of snow fell in the area of the Murree Hills resort overnight Friday and early on Saturday, trapping thousands of cars on roadways, Pakistan Interior Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed told Al Jazeera.
Tourists reportedly rushed to watch the winter snowfall when the tragedy occurred. Many died of hypothermia after being trapped inside their vehicles.
The temperature dropped below minus 17 during the snowfall.
The event took place in Murree, a mountain resort town, located approximately 22 miles north of the country's capital of Islamabad in the mountainous northern region of the country.
The city is a large tourist area, and according to reporting from The New International, as many as 125,000 cars entered the city during the snowstorm which led to severe traffic jams.
The city attracts tourists each winter as people flock to the region to see snow, according to India Today.
"Around 23,000 vehicles have been evacuated safely from Murree. Around 1,000 are still stranded," according to Rawalpindi deputy commissioner.
A strong storm system brought heavy rain and snow across Afghanistan, Pakistan and northwest India late in the week and into the start of the weekend, according to AccuWeather meteorologists.
Observations from Murree show that about an inch of liquid fell in the city from Friday into Saturday.
"Assuming that the majority of this was snow, and using a simple conversion of 10 inches (25 cm) of snow for every inch of liquid, we can estimate that about 10 inches (25 cm) of snow fell," according to AccuWeather meteorologist Tyler Roys.
The same storm brought slightly over 2 inches of rain to Islamabad.
"Given the mountainous terrain across the region and heavier precipitation in nearby Islamabad, it is likely even heavier snow fell in some areas, especially at higher elevations, that led to such significant travel troubles" added Roys.
"There can still be light rain and snow across the region through the rest of the weekend," said Roys. "Though this is not expected to be heavy enough to bring a repeat of what was just seen."
This event followed a similar event early in the past week when motorists became stranded on Interstate 95 in Virginia.
No comments:
Post a Comment