The 21 people who died in Murree should have been alive today, and at home – were Pakistan a country where human life was considered as sacred as it should be by those in power. In possibly one of the starkest reflections of the sheer incompetence and apathy with which the country’s people are treated, Saturday brought heart-wrenching and rage-inducing images and videos – children and adults frozen to death in cars; people begging for help; a government busy gaslighting on social media and in TV appearances; an opposition up in arms; and a people horrified. Needless to say, declaring Murree calamity hit after the deaths had occurred was mere small mercy, and much too little, much too late.
According to reports, over a thousand cars were stuck on a stretch of road to Murree and beyond, snowed in and unable to move. Neither provincial authorities nor the NDMA or PDMA were seemingly prepared to evacuate the stranded people from their cars. Rescue work started after a whole night had gone by and when the tragic deaths had already taken place. In the outrage that has followed – and justifiably so – simple questions are being asked: why did the authorities not take timely measures to limit the flow of tourists? The Pakistan Meteorological Department (PMD) had predicted heavy snowfall in Murree and Galyat from Jan 5 to 10 and there was no ambiguity in its warnings. Why were none of the entities responsible – district administration, interior ministry, NDMA, PDMA, and provincial governments – taking this seriously? Why is it that those responsible wake up to the task so late and do so little before such tragedies strike? There should have been extra deployment of rescue teams in the areas where heavy snowfall was forecast. There should have been helicopters and snowmobiles ready to pick the stranded people – but there was nothing for the stranded who eventually died in their cars, possibly hoping right till the end that some help would come their way.
On top of all the tragedy, the government seems to have decided it's only constant is its blame-the-victim instinct. First came Interior Minister Sheikh Rasheed who seemed to imply that since tourists had flocked to the hill station in large numbers, they were somehow to blame for their own deaths. Then came Information Minister Fawad Chaudhry, also deflecting blame from poor governance on a large number of tourists – and somehow making that the tourists’ fault and not the administration’s. Tourists do go up in the hills to enjoy the snowfall; it’s on the concerned authorities to do at least two things: one, control the flow of tourists; and two, make arrangements to clear the road with all machinery at their disposal to remove snow and keep the traffic moving. And then we saw the prime minister tweet out his shock at the deaths, while managing to somehow blame people for going to Murree during such weather. While the grief, the anger, and the outrage will continue, we must prevail on the government to reformulate the way disaster management is taking place in the country. Unless some drastic measures are put in place, there is a possibility of more such tragedies – for which it is near-impossible to find any rationale, or justification. Anyone trying to spin 21 deaths into something other than sheer apathy and anti-people planning is acting in bad faith. These tragic images also point glaringly to the fact that it may well be easy to tweet about Pakistan’s ‘tourism potential’ or import a few bloggers to do so – but when it comes to walking the talk, we have only seen miserable – and fatal – failure.