KHUZDAR: An army helicopter has been used to shift people stranded in a remote area of Kalat district due to blockage of link roads after heavy snowfall.

The local administration in Kalat and other areas of central and northern Balochistan sought the help of the army and the Frontier Corps to reopen highways for restoring traffic, which was suspended after snowfall.

“An army helicopter, after receiving a Mayday message from the Harboi hill station in Kalat district, rescued five people who had been stuck in the area for the last three days,” Commissioner of Kalat division Hashim Khan Ghilzai told Dawn.

The area had been covered by four-foot snow, he said, adding that the rescued people had been shifted to a safe place.

Meanwhile, Aslam Tareen, Director General of the Provincial Disaster Management Authority (PMDA) of Balochistan, has said that many areas of Mastung district are still cut off from the main cities as link roads have been blocked by heavy snowfall.

He said that the PDMA was launching an operation to provide relief goods to the people stuck in five villages of Mastung district. Relief items will be dropped in the villages through helicopters for which a request has been made with the federal ministry of interior.

The five villages were located in Dasht tehsil where 50,000 packets of relief goods would be dropped, he said. Each packet will contain food for six people.

He said that the highways blocked by snow had been reopened and vehicular traffic was smoothly plying on the roads.

Published in Dawn, January 18th, 2017