{"id":49811,"date":"2022-01-08T20:15:43","date_gmt":"2022-01-08T14:45:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/kashmir.today\/pakistan-21-die-in-cars-stranded-in-snow-near-murree-town\/"},"modified":"2022-01-08T20:15:43","modified_gmt":"2022-01-08T14:45:43","slug":"pakistan-21-die-in-cars-stranded-in-snow-near-murree-town","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/?p=49811","title":{"rendered":"Pakistan: 21 die in cars stranded in snow near Murree town"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong><em>The authorities have declared the area as a disaster zone and calamity hit. Punjab Chief Minister Usman Buzdar imposed a state of emergency.<\/em><\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">At least 21 people died after they were trapped in their vehicle due to heavy snow near the hilltop town of Murree in northern Pakistan, Dawn reported on Saturday. The deceased include nine children.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The police said at least six people had frozen to death in their cars, reported BBC. However, it was not yet clear how the others had died.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The military and the police are trying to clear the roads and rescue those still trapped. Over 1,000 vehicles are trapped, said Interior Minister Sheikh Rashid.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Tourists started getting stranded on a highway during a blizzard since Friday. Over 1 lakh cars had entered Murree, a mountain resort town north of Islamabad, in last few days to see the unusually heavy snowfall. The weather department had predicted heavy snowfall in Murree and Galiyat from January 6 to 9.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cGod willing, we will rescue 1,000 cars by evening today,\u201d said Ahmed. \u201cWe have decided to stop people [travelling] on foot as well. It is no time for [pedestrian] tourists to visit.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The authorities have declared the area as a disaster zone and calamity hit. Punjab Chief Minister Usman Buzdar imposed a state of emergency in hospitals, police stations, administration offices and rescue services.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Prime Minister Imran Khan expressed sorrow and regret over the deaths in Murree and ordered an inquiry. He added that the district administration was \u201ccaught unprepared\u201d due to \u201cunprecedented snowfall and rush of people proceeding without checking weather conditions\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Entry of cars into Khyber Pakhtunkhwa\u2019s Galiyat has been banned too, according to the province\u2019s Chief Minister Mahmood Khan. He added that stranded tourists were rescued and shifted to rest houses and hotels.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cGaliyat Development Authority, Rescue 1122 and local administration have been put on high alert to deal with any untoward situation,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The authorities have declared the area as a disaster zone and calamity hit. Punjab Chief Minister Usman Buzdar imposed a state of emergency. At least 21 people died after they were trapped in their vehicle due to heavy snow near the hilltop town of Murree in northern Pakistan, Dawn reported on Saturday. The deceased include [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":49810,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-49811","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49811","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=49811"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49811\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=49811"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=49811"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=49811"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}