Entire families die stranded in heavy snowstorm — RT World News

Almost two dozen folks, together with households with kids who had been on their approach to a Murree ski resort in Punjab, Pakistan, have frozen to loss of life or suffocated of their vehicles after being trapped by unusually heavy snowstorm.

Within the majority of instances the loss of life was brought on by hypothermia, whereas a few of the victims might have suffered asphyxiation from automotive fumes, authorities stated. The listing of twenty-two victims launched by rescue officers consists of the names of 10 kids. In line with Inside Minister Sheikh Rashid, “round a thousand vehicles” have been stranded on the freeway resulting in Murree since Friday evening. Navy personnel, police and rescue service groups had been deployed to evacuate folks from their automobiles with native residents offering assist to the trapped vacationers.

The helicopter rescue operation, nevertheless, needed to be delayed on account of extreme climate circumstances.

Reacting to the tragedy, the nation’s Prime Minister Imran Khan stated that he was “shocked” and “upset,” including that he had ordered an inquiry and put in place “robust regulation” to forestall such incidents from taking place sooner or later.

“Unprecedented snowfall & rush of ppl continuing with out checking climate circumstances caught district admin unprepared,” the prime minister wrote on Twitter.

Whereas he primarily blamed the climate and native authorities for his or her failure to forestall the tragedy, the prime minister’s selection of phrases has evoked a wave of criticism on social media with some customers calling it “surprising” and “insensitive.”

Although the tragedy shocked Pakistan, the Murree resort city, based by the British in the course of the colonial period, often sees its roads blocked on account of snowfalls and the city’s reputation, with greater than 1,000,000 folks visiting yearly.

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