PM visits hospital to meet injured

Prime Minister Imran Khan arrived in Pakistan-administered Kashmir’s Neelum Valley yesterday, a day after the region witnessed extreme weather conditions resulting in the deaths of scores of people in the valley alone.
The premier visited the injured at the Combined Military Hospital (CMH) in Neelum
Valley.
Taking notice of the deteriorating situation in Neelum Valley on Tuesday, the prime minister had taken to Twitter to assure citizens that the government had taken notice of the situation and was working on an “emergency footing” to provide relief and
assistance.
He said: “The severe snowfalls and landslides in the Neelum Valley have caused misery and deaths. I have asked the NDMA [National Disaster Management Authority], the military and all our federal ministers to immediately provide all humanitarian assistance on an emergency footing to the affected people in the valley.”
A 12-year-old girl was found alive yesterday after being buried for 18 hours when an avalanche in Pakistan-administered Kashmir engulfed the family house.
Samina Bibi recalled screaming and shouting for help as she lay trapped in a room under the snow.
Samina was one of the lucky ones. “I thought I would die there,” she told Reuters from a hospital bed in Muzaffarabad, where she and dozens of other injured people were receiving treatment after being airlifted out of the avalanche area.
For Samina’s mother, Shahnaz Bibi, who lost a son and another daughter, the rescue was nothing short of a miracle. After being pulled out of the snow earlier, Shahnaz said she and her brother, Irshad Ahmad, had given up hope of
finding Samina alive.
Samina said she could not sleep while she waited to be rescued. Her leg was fractured and blood was oozing from her mouth.
For the family, the disaster happened very fast. “We didn’t hear a rumble,” Shahnaz said, recalling the moments before the avalanche buried the three-storey house where she and her family were sheltering with others from the village. At least 18 of them died.
Samina and her family were huddled round a fire when the avalanche hit. “It happened in the blink of an eye,” said Shahnaz.