Winds of misfortune: Four women die in windstorm

There will not be another heat wave, Met Office says

LAHORE:

Sudden gusts of wind and scattered rain showers in the city brought down the mercury level on Monday, but resulted in the deaths of four women in three incidents due to the windstorm. 

In a freak accident, sisters Rehana and Shabana, residents of Data Ganj Bakhsh Town, were on their way to a relative’s funeral when a large tree uprooted and fell on the rickshaw they were travelling in. Edhi officials said the women were seriously injured and were rushed to a hospital where doctors declared them dead on arrival.  They said the rickshaw driver had remained unhurt.  The bodies were handed to the family after completion of legal formalities by Race Course police.

Another woman died after the roof of her house in Shamnagar caved in. Rescue-1122 officials said Hina, 30, was alone at her house near Joy Shah Shrine when the roof collapsed. Rescue-1122 workers and her neighbours helped pull her out from beneath the debris. However, she had died by then. Rescue-1122 said the family had kept a lot of junk on the roof of the single storey house.

In another incident, a woman resident of Imamia Colony died after a wall collapsed because of a strong wind. Rescue-1122 officials said the woman was taken to a hospital where she succumbed to her injuries. She was around 40 years old.

The National Weather Forecasting Centre has forecast scattered rain and thundershowers with gusty winds in Lahore, Rawalpindi, Gujranwala, Dera Ismail Khan divisions and Islamabad in the next two days. It has predicted rain-showers in isolated areas in Sargodha, Faisalabad, Sahiwal, Dera Ghazi Khan and Multan. The Met Office says the weather in Lahore will remain partly cloudy with a chance of rains with gusty winds over the next 24 hours. They said the mercury level in Lahore will not exceed 41 degrees in the next 48 hours.

The Met Office has also said that there is no threat of another heat wave in Pakistan soon. The maximum temperature, they said, is expected to be in the range of 450 and 47 0C in plains of south Punjab, upper Sindh, Sibbi and Makran divisions. The Met Office said another spell of rain and thunder was expected in northern areas of the country in the coming week.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 30^th, 2015.