Snowfall in Shogran: 400 stranded students, faculty members rescued

MANSEHRA: Over 400 students and faculty members, who had been stranded in the Siri Paye meadow of Shogran due to sudden heavy snowfall, were rescued in the early hours of Monday.

“The bumpy four-wheel track connecting Shogran tourist resort to Siri Paye was blocked to traffic due to the heavy snowfall, leaving over 400 students and their guardians stranded. We managed to safely rescue all of them,” District Emergency Officer of Rescue 1122 Abrar Ali told reporters.

He said that Siri Paye, situated over 10,000 feet above sea level, and its surrounding areas received the heaviest snowfall of the season on Sunday night, which continued sporadically till 9am the next morning.

Abrar Ali said that students from Khyber Medical University Peshawar and the COMSATS University Wah Cantt campus were caught in the snowstorm and remained stranded in the highest mountainous parts of the region.

“We initiated the rescue operation around 9 p.m. on Sunday night, successfully rescuing all 400 male and female students and their teachers,” Ali said. He said that the officials of the Tehsil Municipal Administration and the Kaghan Development Authority also participated in the operation. “Our ambulances transported the stranded students to safer locations, from where they continued to leave to their respective destinations,” he added.

The district emergency officer said that all the rescued students were provided with first aid as most of them had walked from the mountainous area and then been picked up by their vehicles and ambulances.Meanwhile, Kaghan valley and other high-altitude parts in Hazara also received snowfall, plunging the division into a severest cold wave.