Thousands of tourists stranded in Murree were leaving the hill station Sunday evening after major roads were reopened. Roads leading out of Murree were busy and so was the return track of the Murree-Islamabad Expressway.
After two freezing and terrifying nights, the sun was finally out in Murree on Sunday. The people at the hill station woke up to a clear sky.
The rescue operation, which was suspended earlier after the nightfall, resumed Sunday morning. Officials have confirmed that 22 people stuck in cars froze to death during the blizzard on January 7.
A day after the tragic deaths of more than 20 tourists in Murree, the authorities have removed snow from all the major roads to normalise traffic at the hill station, Punjab’s traffic police said Sunday morning, say news reports. In a statement, a spokesperson for the Punjab police said that all the key arteries of the city had been cleared for traffic. Lawrence College Road and a section of the road between Jhika Gali and Lower Topa Express Highway have been reopened for traffic, he added.
The spokesperson, however, said that roads leading to Murree from Islamabad and Rawalpindi will remain closed today. He said police officials had been deployed on the roads to stop tourists from moving towards the hill station amid the current weather situation.
During the last 24 hours, over 500 families have been shifted to safe sites from the snowfall-affected Murree, the police said, adding that over 600 vehicles have been evacuated from the hill station till last night.
In a statement, DSP traffic said all stranded tourists were rescued last night. He, too, confirmed that all roads in Murree have been cleared for traffic. The police officer said the vehicles stuck in snow had been shifted to safe sites, adding that they faced difficulty in removing snow from the roads due to the vehicles. The road between Klidna and Barian will be reopened for traffic today, he added.
According to a statement released by the Inter Services Public Relations, all main communication arteries in Murree have been cleared for all types of traffic. As per the statement, major roads, including Kuldana and Barian, have also been cleared for traffic. After the clearance of main roads, army engineers are now focusing on road links.
Meanwhile, relief camps and medical facilitates are operating at full capacity and the army transport is moving stranded tourists to Rawalpindi and Islamabad.
A day earlier, following the federal government’s decision to deploy personnel of the Pakistan Army and other civil-armed forces for rescue operations in snow-hit Murree, the army rescued more than 300 people, including children, the Inter-Services Public Relation (ISPR) had said.
The rescued people were provided with medical care by a team of army doctors and paramedics, the military’s media wing had said.
According to a statement, cooked meals had been served to more than 1,000 stranded people in Jhika Gali, Kashmiri Bazar, Lower Topa and Kuldana.
ISPR had said that the stranded people had been accommodated and provided shelter with meals and tea at Military College Murree, Supply Depot, APS and Army Logistics School Kuldana.
Meanwhile, snow has been removed from the road between Nathia Gali and Abbottabad, said spokesperson for the Galiyat Development Authority, adding that the road between Nathia Gali and Barrian had been reopened for traffic. He maintained an operation was underway to remove snow from all the streets in Galiyat.