Shame on us!

They would have packed in brouhaha. The children would have waited on their toes for going this mortal trip for weeks, even months. The couples would have saved for months out of inflation-hit budget to fund the trip. They would have planned, googled the map upfront, explored through the trip reviews of where to go and what to see. They would have bought thermal wears to keep off the cold. They would have done all this and reckoned everything except for even once deeming the apprehension that they were going to freeze to death; that it would be their ever last-trip; and that they would hold each other helplessly till the last one breathed his last in Murree that dreadful night.

How tragic and painful that night would have been when children were watching their parents for recourse and the parents looking in their eyes with hopelessness. Their journey that night would have begun with mild hypothermic conditions. Their faces were the first to have been hit by extreme cold and the blood would have rushed to the body’s core in order it could keep the vital organs of their bodies working. Next, their bodies would have violently shivered to produce some heat and supply to maintain the core body temperature, but that too would last for some time only.

Pushed to further drop in core body temperature, they would have next experienced amnesia and this was when their bodies would go numb and would become harder for them to have moved their muscles. The lack of oxygen would have further pressed their brains from functioning and it was when they would have surely developed hallucinations, both visual and auditory. Taken ahead and they would have fallen unconscious and the body organs would have begun non-functioning, shutting one after the other — frozen to death!

The night the children remained looking towards their parents and the night the parents remained gazing at them hopelessly!

We knew that it was going to snow in Murree and snow heavily. We knew that more than a hundred thousand vehicles entered into the tiny little hill station. We knew the roads were narrow and massive snows could create road blockades. We knew there could be emergent conditions and rescue could become compelling. We knew we could not even properly manage the traffic let alone disaster conditions. We knew we could not rescue people in such great number should a disaster come in. Despite knowing all these different dimensions, we acted on nothing.

We did not stop the vehicles from entering into Murree nor the visitors. We did not plan for any emergency conditions where we could have saved the reported 23 lives that froze to death. We did not even ring alarms to search for everyone in the area who could have required any assistance. We knew we were good for nothing and we were such incompetent stock of people but we never admitted our despondent and criminal incompetence. We let it go as we let everything go. We thought it was business as usual as it is always business as usual for us. We still say… Accidents happen…Shame!

Governance structure — that means all the government departments — is a total failure and an epitome of incompetence but what let us down this time was the community in general. A few years back when it snowed hell in Quetta and adjacent areas, a man, namely Suleman Mehtarzai, rescued more than hundred tourists using his one Land Cruiser. Of these hundred people there could have been some casualties but thanks to him who saved many from freezing to death. Unexpectedly, we did not see this happening in Murree where population is thick and people are more closely knit. Ours has become a jungle and this is absolutely not a society.

We failed both as a state and also as a society in saving our ones from freezing to death. Let us celebrate shame!

Published in The Express Tribune, January 17, 2022.

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