After six days a total of 34 bodies were recovered and the operation was abandoned leaving two children still missing. PHOTO: FILE
While the government has abandoned its mission to find bodies missing from the Budhni bus crash, locals of Budhu Samrbagh village continue to search for the remaining two children.
On Friday, February 22 a bus carrying around 48 passengers en route to a wedding plunged into Budhni canal. Soon afterward, the district government along with Rescue 1122 initiated a search operation to look for survivors and bodies.
However, after six days a total of 34 bodies were recovered and the operation was abandoned leaving two children still missing.
“Locals have aided authorities throughout the search operation,” said Additional Assistant Commissioner Habibullah Arif, who was supervising the rescue mission. When asked about the mission being abandoned before finding the two children, Arif maintained navy divers had searched the entire canal all the way to Shalam River but were unable to recover the minors.
However, Mastan Shah and Mustaqeem Khan, both villagers who had voluntarily participated in the mission, said there was still a possibility the children lay under the bridge’s debris. Shah and Khan have been leading other volunteers in the search operation from dawn till dusk since the incident took place.
Muhammad Asif, whose six-month-old daughter Rimsha is still missing, told The Express Tribune that volunteers were faced with extreme difficulties in recovering the children because the district government had removed the machinery that had been deployed for the rescue operation. Bodies of three of his children have already been recovered.
The district government and Rescue 1122 officials acknowledged they did not have the proper equipment to conduct the search and called in navy divers to assist in the operation.
Adnan Khan, a spokesperson for the Provincial Disaster Management Authority (PDMA) said the PDMA had nothing to do with the search effort. “It is the domain of other government organisations,” he added.
Published in The Express Tribune, March 5th, 2013.
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