PHOTO: FILE
HARIPUR: As dozens around him started to drown with the sinking boat in the middle of the Tarbela Lake, one youngster grabbed on to whatever he could to stay afloat: a goat.
Zahid, a youngster who was aboard the boat which capsized in the Tarbela Lake on Wednesday leaving at least 24 people dead, is among the few survivors of the horrendous tragedy.
Around noon on July 3, a boat carrying around 40 people and some livestock was travelling down the Tarbela Lake from Torghar towards Haripur. Zahid was among the men, women, children and elderly passengers.
Speaking to The Express Tribune, he recounted that he, along with his family, was heading to Haripur to visit their relatives in the Khalabat Township.
When they neared Barg, their boat got caught in a whirlpool. Owing to strong currents, the boat’s bow started to sink into the lake. At the same time, the stern of the boat started to rise up into the air. This spread panic amongst the boat’s passengers, some of whom started jumping off into the water to save themselves.
Four drown as boat capsizes near Haripur
“Everyone, men, women, children, and the elderly tried to save themselves,” Zahid said.
At this point, Zahid said that he was sitting near some goats in the boat but he did not jump.
Then, the inevitable happened and the boat capsized, throwing Zahid, the goats and everything else into the raging lake.
“I thrashed around in the water for a while, swinging and thrusting my arms and legs to stay afloat,” he recounted. Soon, Zahid said that he saw a large goat swim by.
“I grabbed on to the goat with all the strength that I had and hung on for dear life,” Zahid said.
He said that he slowly managed to pull his head above water and breathe while the goat swam towards the shore. Zahid, who hails from Shangla, said that he only let the goat go when his feet could feel the moist earth of shore beneath his feet.
After he regained his breath and could finally think, he said he found himself on a muddy stretch of shore with pockets of quicksand which made getting onto dry land another challenge altogether.
But, Zahid said, he managed to finally walk out of the water and find a perch on the rocks lining the shore.
“When I finally looked back across the lake, I saw that nothing was left,” Zahid recounted, adding that the boat was completely gone and he just saw a few items and some livestock from the boat floating by like twigs.
Three sisters drown as boat capsizes
“I do not think I will ever be able to forget this sight,” Zahid said as his voice started to break up.
“I had my family with me but now there is no sign of them anywhere,” he cried, adding that he is apparently the sole survivor of his family.
Zahid was among the few survivors who had met with Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P) Chief Minister Mahmood Khan who had visited the site a day after the incident.
The boy said that the chief minister had consoled him and assured him that he could stay on the banks of the Tarbela Lake until the bodies of his loved ones are recovered.
Admin sets up camp
The Haripur district administration on Sunday set up a camp for the survivors and the relatives of the victims of the boat tragedy on the banks of the Tarbela Lake near Barg.
They will be provided with food, shelter and other requisite facilities in the camp. Meanwhile, the search operation continued for a fifth consecutive day in Tarbela Lake on Sunday without any success.
The rescue team chief told The Express Tribune that they had expanded their search for bodies to the spillways of the Tarbela Lake, but that had yet to yield and positive results.
He added that owing to the warmer climates upstream and melting of glaciers, the flow of water in the lake had increased, making the rescue operation quite risky.
We have recovered four dead bodies of the kids on the first day, while the dead bodies of 34 people are still missing within the lake which we are searching for, while he explained that we are also struggling with the removing of the sunken boat, as the lower part still in Painted waters.
Published in The Express Tribune, July 08th, 2019.
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