By Ismail Khan
• Rescue 1122 response faced nearly 40-minute delay; district emergency officer was AWOL, man recruited as diver was ‘afraid of water’
• Flood protection wall found encroaching on river bed, gave tourists ‘false sense of security’
• Provincial Inspection Team advocates inquiries over illegal constructions in Swat since 2010
PESHAWAR: It was a race against time: every second, every minute counted as the lives of over a dozen tourists stranded in the midst of a raging deluge hung by a thread.
“The window of time was narrow”, noted the three-member inquiry committee in its report on the tragic drowning of thirteen vacationers at Khwazakhela, Swat.
What unfolded subsequently was a tragedy of unspeakable proportions, with men, women and children being swept away by raging waters as onlookers watched helplessly from the riverbank.
The committee’s report presents a detailed, minute-by-minute account of the incident, incorporating statements from officials, eyewitnesses, and survivors, as well as contents o