ISLAMABAD, Pakistan – Sheikh Rashid, the Federal Minister of Interior, arrived in Murree on Saturday to oversee relief and evacuation efforts as the situation in northern districts worsened owing to an intense snowstorm.
To avoid any disruption, the minister has urged people to postpone their intentions to travel to northern areas. He said that civil armed forces had been called in to help with a snow-related rescue operation.
Sheikh Rashid has asked people to assist tourists who have become stranded due to the storm. We have restricted all routes to Murree due to the overwhelming number of tourists in these locations, he said.
In a separate video address, the minister stated that there had been sixteen to nineteen deaths in Murree as a result of snowfall.
Four of the victims were buddies who were visiting Murree from Mardan, according to police. They died of exposure to the elements after spending the night in their car owing to a massive traffic backup.
The administrations of Rawalpindi and Islamabad, on the other hand, stopped roads leading to Murree and Galiyat due to a huge number of vehicles accessing the hill station as a result of the heavy snowfall.
Fawad Chaudhry, the Federal Minister of Information and Broadcasting, had earlier in the day encouraged people to postpone their plans to travel northern areas for a few days due to major traffic bottlenecks.
Hundreds of thousands of vehicles are coming towards these places, generating challenges for local governments that are unable to accommodate such a significant number of vehicles, he claimed in a tweet.