Our Correspondent
Abbottabad
Death tolls owing to gas leakage was increasing day by day in Hazara division, during the last one week 16 people had lost their lives in district Abbottabad and Mansehra. Every year gas leakage from heaters claims dozens of life in Hazara division, during the last two years up to 50 people died in Abbottabad, Mansehra and Haripur by gas leakage, after the start of 2021 the ratio of deaths drastically increased, during the first week four people died in Abbottabad in two different incidents.
Unfortunately, in three incidents entire families died but people were still using gas heaters to beat the freezing temperature despite knowing the facts of suffocation, unscheduled gas load shedding and low pressure. Two families comprising 8 members including 4 minors have lost lives in just one day in Abbottabad and Mansehra cities.
During one week 9 people died in Mansehra while 7 in Abbottabad by gas leakage. In Mansehra, on 7th January six members’ of a family died by suffocation, on 11th January three more people of the same family including a minor girl lost their lives. Similarly, in Abbottabad on 11th January 5 family members including 3 minor girls died at Phul Gulab road, on 8th of January one man died at Neelay Pair Abbottabad and on 9th at Shaki ul Bandi another person died by suffocation. Sui Northern Gas Pipelines (SNGPL) official told to media that masses should properly switched off their gas heaters while going to sleep, so they could be save from such unfortunate incidents.
He further said that SNGPL always advertises the precautionary measures on print, electronic and social media of using gas appliances particularly in the winter, we also direct people not to use gas heaters while going to bed and close gas valves before sleeping. On the other side, people have asked SNPG to properly advertise their load shedding schedule in the local print and social media to aware people and also launch a campaign to sensitize people about the serious threat of keeping heaters on in the night.
