Mountain sheer-off displaces six families in Booni

Dawn


By Zar Alam Khan

ISLAMABAD: Residents of Nivazantek in Booni, about 70 km north of the Chitral town, were on Saturday evacuated to a safer place after a mountain started sheering off on their houses.
Talking to this correspondent on the phone from Booni, Syed Kausar Ali Shah, a resident of the locality, said after an earthquake last year the mountain overlooking their houses had started crumbling.
He said with the melting of heavy snow on the mountain, big boulders and stones started to fall on the locality damaging houses, orchards, standing crops and threatening public lives.
The residents left their houses about a week back and were staying with relatives in other parts of the Booni village till they were shifted to temporary tents at Kroi Junali on Saturday, he added.
Mr Ali said Focus Humanitarian Assistance, an NGO, had supplied them tents while residents of Booni were providing them other necessary items. So far there has been no assistance from the government side, he added.
He said MPA Ghulam Mohammad was supervising the relief operation and was in touch with the authorities concerned to ensure relief supplies to the affected people, while Tehsil Nazim Mastuj Shahzada Skendarul Mulk had visited the site and promised assistance to the affected people.
He called upon the federal government to activate the Disaster Management Cell in order to provide relief supplies to the displaced people on time.