Deadly and devastating: Two incidents dampen Eid festivities in Gojal

Misgar road accident, Irshad Pass avalanche claim six lives.

GILGIT:

Two tragic incidents dampened Eidul Azha festivities in Gojal valley in which six people lost their lives.

Three people were killed and two injured when a car skidded off the road and plunged into a deep gorge in the remote Misgar valley of Gojal Tehsil of Hunza-Nagar District, Gilgit-Baltistan on Tuesday morning.

Rahimullah Qalmi and Aziz Hajat died on the spot while the driver of the vehicle, identified as Musa Ali, sustained injuries. He died on way while being shifted to Aliabad Hunza.

Aziz Hajat, reportedly, was a serving Junior-Commissioned Officer (Haveldar) in the Pakistan Army, returning to his unit after spending Eid holidays with his family.

Sources told The Express Tribune that Abdul Karim and Didar Ali were injured in the accident.

“The cause of the accident could not be ascertained immediately due to the remoteness and poor communication system in Misgar, about 250km from Gilgit,” a government official in Gilgit said.

Earlier on November 4, three people were hit by an avalanche at 4,977 meters (16,329 feet) Irshad Pass on Pakistan-Afghan border in the mountainous Chipursan valley of Gojal as they were returning from Wakhan Corridor via Pamir, the highest mountain range in Tajikistan but extends into Kyrgyzstan, Afghanistan, Pakistan and western China.

“They were part of a 17-member team coming from Afghanistan,” Aziz Ahmed, a resident of Gojal valley told The Express Tribune on Wednesday.

He said that when the convoy got near Wuyin, most of the men in the convoy stopped, except the three victims, who decided to continue the journey. “Unfortunately they were hit by an avalanche,” he said. The dead identified as Qurban Baig, Ita’at Shah and Saeed Ahmed Khan, were yak traders.

They were travelling with four masons who do seasonal work with Central Asian Institute (CAI) founded and run by Greg Mortenson in Wakhan, training local men in construction trades. All seven men were from Chipursan Valley.

The Wakhi people have familial ties on both sides of the border and traders have travelled this route for decades.

The men affiliated with CAI were higher up the mountain than the traders and their yaks when the avalanche cut loose.

According to the CAI program manager, the men were all headed home for winter, but the early snowfall in the 16,329-foot-high Irshad Pass caught them off guard.

The masons managed to trek back to Chitral safely and informed their relatives of the incident.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 10^th, 2011.