CHITRAL: Efforts to locate the seven students buried under a snow avalanche in Susoom village here could not bear fruit on the fourth consecutive day on Wednesday.

A member of district council from Karimabad, Mohammad Yaqub, told Dawn by phone that the personnel of Chitral Scouts, police and Levies, local volunteers and the NDMA team were making joint efforts to trace the students, but could not make any headway so far.

He said that it was a cloudy day on Wednesday with lesser danger of drifting of the snow avalanche due to which the work continued for the whole day and a new strategy was adopted to remove the snow from the probable place of finding the bodies.

Mr Yaqub said that the rescuers tried to break small pieces from the mass of snow to make its removal easier and for this purpose water through pipes was directed towards it with high pressure, but it did not work.

General officer commanding of the Pakistan Army, Swat division, Major General Nadir Khan also visited the village on Wednesday and assured the people of all-out help in the efforts for recovery of the bodies.

Talking to Dawn, commandant of Chitral Scouts, Col Nizamuddin, said that the GOC announced on the occasion to send a team of engineers of the Pakistan Army along with gadgets for accelerating melting of the snow on the site. He said that the GOC also announced to send a radar system capable of indicating the right spot where the bodies were lying beneath the snow so that pointed excavation could be carried out.

Published in Dawn, March 24th, 2016