Tourists question blizzard tragedy after 22 die in scenic Pakistan mountain town
- ‘We didn’t get any type of alert from society, from the government, from Google, from the news, from the weather,’ said Duaa Kashif Ali, a tourist from Islamabad
- Roads near the town of Murree were jammed with traffic from some 100,000 visitors when a blizzard dumped four feet (1.2 metres) of snow from Friday
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.
“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 Agence France-Presse, after emerging from a guest house where she waited out the worst snowstorm witnessed by Murree in decades.
The mountain-perch town – 70km (45 miles) northeast of Islamabad – 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.
“People here were literally weeping … when they heard,” recalled 47-year-old tourist Kashif Ishaq.