Mehwish azam
ISLAMABAD, Jan 31 (APP): Murree tragedy, in which over 20 people had lost their lives earlier this month, was caused by many reasons including maladministration, however, a less talked about reason was public not following the travel advisory, weather alert and making abrupt plans to visit the snowy mountains.
Although, the official website of Pakistan Meteorological department (MET) had issued a monthly weather outlook for the month of January quoting, “Overall, a tendency for ‘above normal’ precipitation is predicted over most parts of the country”.
The Met Office had also issued an alert on Jan 5 that heavy snow storm may cause road closures in Murree, Galiyat, Nathiagali, Kaghan, Naran and other areas from Jan 6 to Jan 9 afternoon. “All authorities concerned are particularly advised to remain ‘alert’ during the forecast period,” the Met Office had stated.
Seeking travel advisory before making travel plans in severe weather conditions has almost been a non-practice in the country that causes distress and sometimes puts the tourists in dangerous situations.
A tourist from Lahore Haroon Ali who had returned from the Bharah koh check point with his family told this scribe that they did not know about the travel advisory as they did not bother to check the weather alert on the PMD website before departure.
“We were just excited about the snowfall and wanted to enjoy our winter vacations. We got to know about the heavy snowfall while enroute to Murree and decided to come back to avoid any incident”, he said.
All over the world, the public, whenever they tend to visit certain areas especially with severe weather or security situation, tend to look for the travel advisory issued by the relevant authority to avoid the inconvenience.
Dr. Ifraheem Mathew, a US-based Pakistani doctor who was visiting his family in January told this scribe that he was keenly observing the Murree situation and his family canceled their plan to visit Murree after finding out about the alert from the MET office.
“One of my friends who is a tour operator sent me the travel advisory issued by Murree administration and I immediately halted the plan of spending the weekend in Nathiagali. Having spent most of my life in the US, I am used to following the weather alerts by authorities that usually are received via a simple text on Mobile phone,” he explained.
According to district administration, as many as 1,000 vehicles were stranded because tourist from across the country rushed to view the snowfall in the hilltop town of Murree with families and kids aboard who were trapped in snow covered roads and found no way to be going back due to huge traffic jams of highways coming to Murree.
On the other hand, this tragedy could have been avoided if the local administration had taken action to stop vehicles from entering the town on time. Almost all week before the incident, Islamabad, Rawalpindi had received heaviest rainfalls while Murree and nearby hill stations received intermittent but heavy snowfall.
According to the MET office, Murree received 6.5 inches of snowfall on Jan 5 (Wednesday), followed by 8.5 inches the next day while 16.5 inches were recorded from the morning of Jan 7 (Friday) up to Saturday morning.
Owing to the worsening weather conditions, the administration of Murree tehsil, however, had issued a travel advisory, suggesting that tourists should get weather updates and traffic-related information prior to traveling to the hill station.
This advisory had obviously gone unheeded as from Jan 3-5 alone over 80,000 vehicles had entered Murree, a town that had a parking capacity of nearly 3,500 vehicles, according to Rawalpindi Police official twitter handle.
Later on, 15 officials including Rawalpindi commissioner, Rawalpindi deputy commissioner, Murree assistant commissioner, Rawalpindi city police officer, Murree assistant superintendent of police had been removed from their positions in line with recommendations of the inquiry committee probing the Murree Tragedy.
