LAHORE: Punjab Emergency Services Secretary Dr Rizwan Naseer expressed his concern over the increasing number of road accidents and the loss of 85 lives in Punjab during the Eid holidays.
While chairing a meeting with the heads of wings of emergency services department, provincial monitoring officer, and divisional and district emergency officers on Thursday, he urged all stakeholders, including parents, teachers and civil society, to sensitise their loved ones to adopt the road safety measures and observe the speed limit up to 50 km/h on a motorbike as every km/h increase in speed increases the risk of fatal crash by 4 to 6 percent.
On this occasion, Dr Rizwan appreciated rescuers who sacrificed their Eid leaves to provide timely emergency services to the citizens of Punjab.
He said the Rescue 1122 emergency ambulance, the rescue and fire services and the motorbike rescue service responded to 29,132 emergencies in all districts of Punjab during the Eid holidays.
On this occasion, through a video link, the District Emergency Officer (DEO) Gujranwala briefed about a drowning incident in which a 20-year-old boy drowned.
The DEO Rahim Yar Khan shared a cylinder blast emergency which burnt 12 victims while the DEO Rawalpindi reported multiple gas leakage incidents and the DEO Jhelum discussed a challenging forest fire and rescue operation in the mountains. The District Emergency Officer Sheikhupura reported about an accident in which three motorcyclists died on the spot.
The Provincial Monitoring Officer (PMO) briefed the meeting that over 10,000 rescuers were deployed in three shifts at strategic sites during the Eid holidays to ensure prompt response to all emergencies in all districts and tehsils of Punjab.
He said that Rescue 1122 responded to 29,132 emergencies in Punjab during the Eid holidays out of which 8,887 were road traffic crashes with 85 deaths, 16,831 medical emergencies with 666 deaths, 641 crime incidents, 501 fire emergencies, 533 delivery cases, 648 falls and slipping emergencies, 109 animal rescue and 982 miscellaneous emergencies.
The meeting was also informed that the highest number of emergencies occurred in Lahore with 2,972 emergencies, followed by Faisalabad with 1,847 emergencies, Multan with 1,539 emergencies, Bahawalpur with 1,280 emergencies and Gujranwala with 1,236 emergencies and the lowest number of 264 emergencies were reported in Chakwal.
The data further revealed that out of 8,887 road traffic crashes, 1,336 accidents occurred in Lahore, 558 in Faisalabad, 556 in Multan, 477 in Gujranwala, 344 in Kasur and 325 in Sheikhupura while the remaining 5,291 road traffic crashes took place in other districts of Punjab.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2025
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