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| At least 22 people died when they became trapped in their cars during very heavy snow in the mountains ] northeast of Islamabad. |
Unfortunately, at least 22 people died when they became trapped in cars in a touristy hill town in Pakistan.
People living in lowlands drove up to the hilltop town of Murree to see the snow. The town is at about 7,500 feet above sea level and sees snow much more frequently than surrounding lowlands.
But the storm turned intense, dumping as much as five feet of snow over several hours. At least 1,000 cars became stuck in the snow. People in those cars died of the cold, or asphyxiation when the snow buried car tailpipes.
The BBC said ten children were among the dead, and two whole families - one consisting of five people, the other eight - died in the disaster.
The BBC reports that authorities are investigating whether there were adequate warnings about the size of the snow and whether too many people were allowed to drive up to the mountain town.
"According to the BBC's Farhat Javed, who is in Murree, there is space for about 5,000 cars in the town. However, on Friday, 100,000 visitors had been allowed to enter, causing a massive traffic jam as they struggled through the deep snow."
Murree is only about 30 miles away from the Pakistani capital of Islamabad, so there's a large population that might want to visit the mountain resort.
The snow tragedy in Pakistan follows two big traffic tie ups during winter storms in the United States that so far at least, seem to have caused few injuries and no deaths. On January 3-4, thousands of motorists were trapped on Interstate 95 in Virginia for as long as 30 hours dues to heavy snow, numerous crashes and fallen trees blocking the highway.
On January 6, people were trapped on highways in Kentucky for as long as 15 hours as snow snarled things up and caused crashes there.
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