MURREE; The lack of proper safety plan and inaction on the part of local admistration were two major factors that caused loss of human lives on wee hours in Murree on Saturday.
Murree and its srounding areas such as Gulyats have capacity to host upto 25 thousands vehicles ,but on the tragic day the hilly tourists city and srounding areas had choked with around one hundred thousand plus vehicles.
The glaring questions which boggle the people’s minds about Murree tragedy included; 1) Was it the first heavy snowfall in Murree and Guliyats?
2) Why Murree administration did not move quickly to protect lives of the tourists when it was experiencing sudden and sharp snowfall in its area?
Murree adminstration always sprays salt on the roads and then uses machinery to clear the roads of snow in such weather and where was that planning and machinery this time?.
The tragedy raised many other serious questions over behaviour of the Rawalpindi and Murree administration. The other side of this sad incident is who allowed influx of vehicles in Murree and Guliyats when the Met Department had already issued a warning of snowstorm in the area. Was it not the responsibility of the RawalPindi administration, right from the commissioner to deputy commissioner to.take Met Department’s warning of snowstorm in Murree and srounding Guliyats seriously and implement it to stop the tourists from entering into Murree area beyond its capacity.?
Nadeem Abbasi, a local resident, told NEWSMAN on Sunday that Murree has history of even worse snowstorm, but it never turned into a tragedy. He said the Murree admistration in the past used to spray salt on the roads and it was always followed by use of machinery to clear the roads to ensure safe entry of tourists into Murree, but this time there was nothing like it.
:It was unfortunate, the local administration sat back on Saturday night to let the snowstorm take lives of the tourists in Mutree and Galiyats”,