Gas heater claims two more lives

Schoolteacher left the appliance on before going to bed and the room filled up with gas

MANSEHRA: A schoolteacher and his mother died of asphyxia in Mansehra on Saturday, due to erratic supply of piped gas.

Police said that gas supply cut took two lives in Ghazikot area of Mansehra.

According to police schoolteacher Azam Shahzad, his mother and his daughter were sleeping in the same room, while his brother was in the next room. Due to severe cold they had shut all the windows and left the gas heater on.

However, during the night the gas supply got disrupted and the flame died. But when the supply resumed a few hours later, the gas was not burning.

Shahzad and his mother died in their sleep due to inhaling too much gas. His daughter survived.

When Shahzad's brother, who was sleeping in the next room, woke up in the morning, he found that no one was responding to his calls and when he knocked on the door to his brother's room. They broke into the room through the window and found all three fainted and shifted them to King Abdullah Hospital Manshera where doctors declared mother and son dead while the eight-year-old daughter of Shahzad survived and being treated at the hospital.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 17^th, 2017.