Pakistan

New helpline to reunite victims with families

24 hour helpline has been launched with three lines to deal with missing victims of emergencies

Our Correspondent May 24, 2019

24 hour helpline has been launched with three lines to deal with missing victims of emergencies. DESIGN: ESSA MALIK

LAHORE: Rescue 1122 had a soft launch for their new helpline meant to reunite the missing victims of emergencies, accidents and disasters with their families, at Rescue Headquarters on Thursday.

Punjab Emergency Service Director General Dr Rizwan Naseer and other officials from Rescue Headquarters and the Emergency Service Academy attended the ceremony.

The new number for the helpline has been allocated as 1192. In the first phase, the 24 hour helpline has been launched with three lines to deal with missing victims of emergencies. The families of missing victims can locate their loved ones through the helpline.

In this regard, a purpose built software application has been developed to keep a complete database about the information of missing victims.

Addressing the ceremony, the director general said that the emergency service is dealing with 3,000 accidents and emergencies across Punjab on a daily basis. Often times, the rescue service deals with victims who are either unconscious or dead, he explained.

Therefore, there was a dire need to establish a mechanism to reunite the dead or unconscious victims with their families, he said. It is for this purpose that the helpline was established, he said. In such a situation, any individual can call the helpline to get information about their loved ones if they go missing during a disaster.

He maintained that in the case of a major disaster, citizens start panicking because of the unavailability of services which can help to locate the missing victims. He stated that Rescue 1122 has become the leading emergency service in Pakistan, with infrastructure across several areas such as Punjab and Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, which can be effectively utilised to reunite families.

The director general appealed to the citizens of the country to call the helpline in case of any emergency and requested the media to highlight the scope of the project so that families can be reunited with their loved ones.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 24^th, 2019.