Rescue boat leaves passengers stranded in Attabad lake

As many as 26 persons stranded in the middle of the Attabad Lake on newly inaugurated emergency boat.


Shabbir Mir March 19, 2011
Rescue boat leaves passengers stranded in Attabad lake

GILGIT:


As many as 26 persons, eight of them women, stranded in the middle of the Attabad Lake on an enclosed emergency boat, were rescued by a couple of private boats on Friday.


People said that the boat’s engine gave out after covering a distance of over 15 kilometres of the lake.

The emergency boat service was inaugurated only two days ago by the region’s Chief Minister Syed Mehdi Shah to replace ordinary boat operations which had a tendency of getting stuck in the frozen lake.

The passengers had a harrowing experience of being stranded in the middle of nowhere for two hours, said Murtaza Khan, a resident of Gojal, where boats are the sole means of transport.

The transport company, formerly known as the Northern Areas Transport Company (Natco), had provided the modern boats for “safe and smooth” transportation of passengers.

Sources in Hunza said that the boat had set out from Gulmit, a major town in Gojal, part of which has been inundated, towards the spillway carrying 26 passengers, eight of whom were women.

A couple of private boats which were operating nearby in the lake at the time came to the passengers’ rescue.

The survival boat can accomodate 32 passengers, besides carrying 2.5 tons of cargo. The boat, each bought for Rs2 million, is said to be suitable for voyages in the lake which was formed after a massive landslide struck the region in January 2010, blocking the Hunza River.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 19th, 2011.

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