Hopes of survival fades as search for Chitral avalanche victims enters third day

Two bodies have been recovered so far out of a total of 9 people who are feared dead

PESHAWAR: Chances of survival were fading for five students and two others feared buried under an avalanche three days ago in Chitral, authorities said on Tuesday.

The search for the missing entered a third day as an urban search team landed in a helicopter in the Karimabad area. The disaster struck on Saturday afternoon near the village of Susom, north of Chitral.



According to the provincial disaster management authority (PDMA), the helicopter and the search team, provided by the national disaster management authority (NDMA), began searching for the bodies of those missing with the help of special detectors.

PHOTO: EXPRESS

The disaster had struck on Saturday afternoon near the village of Susom, some 40 kilometres north of the town of Chitral in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P).

A massive avalanche fell on a group of school children returning home after exams. Two bodies -- -- those of a school boy and a local man -- were pulled from the snow on Sunday, while rescuers have not been able to find seven pupils who remain missing.

“Problems are being faced in the rescue efforts because of the high altitude and inaccessible path,” an official from the control room in Chitral told The Express Tribune.

“The layer of ice is 30 metres thick,” said Lateefur Rehman, a spokesperson for the PDMA.

Heavy machinery could not be carried to the area because of lack of equipment earlier but officials are still hopeful that with the aid of helicopters they will be able to locate the missing bodies.



Local police official Mohammad Zafar said pupils were returning to their village Karimabad after finishing high school exams when the incident took place on Saturday.

Nobody was aware of the accident till the evening when worried parents started searching for their children who had not returned home after going for their exams, Zafar said.

Heavy rains have killed at least 121 people, injured 124 and damaged 852 houses since March 9 across Pakistan, according to the NDMA. It said landslides and collapsed roofs caused most of the fatalities.

Poorly-built homes, particularly in rural areas, are most prone to collapse. Severe weather hits the country every year, with hundreds killed and huge tracts of prime farmland destroyed in recent years.