Stray, unexplained, 16kg icecube kills woman

SAHIWAL: Amid soaring temperatures of up to 46 degrees celsius, a heavy snowball fell from the sky and killed a 60 year-old-woman.

Khursheed Bibi, a 9-110L resident, was sleeping under the open sky in her yard when a stray snowball appeared out of the sky and circled the air several times before falling on her head. Other members of her family, who were sleeping inside the house, were completely safe. Khursheed’s son Altaf said that the incident was extremely shocking “We had no idea how this happened. She was fast asleep and a stray block of ice killed her in her sleep,” he said. “It is inexplicable, seeing as the temperatures are boiling and none of us can really even sleep because of the heat. My mother put her charpoi in the yard because it was slightly cooler outside at night. Constant power cuts bothered her when she was inside,” he said.

Villagers have said that the snowball which fell in Khursheed’s yard, had terrified the entire village. “The sound was explosive and we initially thought that there had been a bomb blast, it was so loud,” said Dadu Kamal Shah, a resident.

“The entire village woke up because of the sound and we all rushed to see what had happened. I suppose this is even more shocking than a bomb blast in Sahiwal,” said Khurram, Khursheed’s neighbor. According to Shireen “It is almost like this is a sign of Armageddon!”

Rescue in charge Abdul Malik reached the spot with his team and also had the snowball weighed.

“We have confirmed that the snowball weighs at least 16 kg and we still have no idea how this incident could have happened,

he said. “With rising temperatures in the area, it is hard to imagine how a stray block of ice could have appeared out of the sky like this. But the ice has a different texture from manufactured ice and its colour is also much whiter, like snow,” Malik said. Malik confirmed that Rescue 1122 teams had administered first aid to Khursheed bibi, but she was already dead.

Met Office officials have not been able to explain the incident so far. A met office representative, said that the incident was remarkable considering the weeks forecast by the Met Office only lists extreme temperatures in the district. “The entire week is expected to see temperature above 45 degrees celcius, this makes a block of ice appearing from the sky, particularly shocking,” he said.

Met Office director Mian Mohammad Ajmal said that it was highly unlikely to see an snow ball larger then one or two inches in the plains of Punjab. “It is rare to see hail activity in the plains even during the hail season which lasts from the end of May well into April, and a week after the monsoon season. This event is extremely hard to explain, given that the incident occurred in Sahiwal rather than in the north, where it would be easily explained as a stray piece of a glacier,” he said. “The incident can’t even be explained as a tornado event, as those are extremely rare in Punjab,” he said.

Published in the Express Tribune, June 1st, 2010.