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| Rains, snowfall throw life out of gear, NH closed for second day | | |
EARLY TIMES REPORT
JAMMU, Feb 7: With no let up in rains and fresh snowfall in upper reaches of the State, normal life was thrown out of gear in Jammu region with mercury witnessing downward trends on second consecutive day here today.
Official reports said that incessant rains followed by fresh snowfall at Jawahar Tunnel and shooting of stones on vulnerable Panthial point forced authorities to suspend vehicular movement on 300-km-long Jammu-Srinagar National Highway, the only surface link between Kashmir Valley and rest of the country, after its “partial” re-opening this evening.
It said that the Border Road Organisation (BRO), responsible for the maintenance of the highway had pressed into service men and sophisticated machines to make the highway traffic worthy and cleared the accumulated snow at Jawahar Tunnel at around 2:00 p.m this afternoon.
“About 60 passenger vehicles and 150 trucks including oil tankers, which had been stranded between Ramban and Banihal since yesterday, were cleared by the traffic police personnel deployed on highway while no fresh vehicle from Jammu and Srinagar cities were allowed to move forward due to slippery road conditions on highway,” said sources.
“Due to continuous rainfall, fresh snowfall was witnessed on different stretches between Qazigund and Banihal. The traffic on highway was again suspended at around 6:00 p.m because the road was very slippery,” they maintained.
Sources said that about 6 to 7 feet of snow had accumulated on Jawahar Tunnel forcing authorities to suspend the traffic movement due to threat of snow avalanches, adding that the authorities used salt to defreeze the frozen snow on the road at different places.
“Constant rainfall also triggered shooting of stones and landslides at vulnerable Panthial area which had also made driving on this stretch dangerous,” said sources.
The traffic would be allowed on the highway only after receiving green signal from the officials deployed at different places on the road.
They, however, said that thousands of vehicles including truckers, which were not allowed to proceed towards Srinagar, remained stranded at different places including Ramban, Botate, Kud and Udhampur since yesterday morning.
The stranded passengers complained about shortage of food and other essentials though the authorities claimed to have made arrangements for them. They also complained about price rise of eatables by the shopkeepers.
Meanwhile, upper reaches of Jammu region also experienced heavy snowfall since last night. Reports said that holy shrine of Vaishno Devi in Katra town also witnessed snowfall while the famous Patnitop tourist resort also experienced one feet snowfall and heavy rains since early this morning.
Reports from mountainous Doda and Kishtwar districts said that heavy rains and snowfall have created havoc in both the districts.
“Heavy snowfall has thrown the normal life out of gear in Doda and Kishtwar districts snapping normal power and water supplies. Continuous rains and snowfall forced the people to remain inside their houses while the traffic on National Highway connecting these districts with other parts of Jammu region also got disrupted this morning,” said reports.
Reports maintained that dozens of villages, including Machil, Keran, Karnah and Neeru were cut off from the rest of the state after the Sadhna and Razdan passes were closed due to heavy snowfall.
Reports said that the minimum temperature in the Kashmir valley and the cold desert of Ladakh region showed an upward trend.
“The minimum temperature in Srinagar was 0.2 degrees Celsius while it was minus 3.4 degrees in Leh and minus 5 degrees in Kargil town,” said an official of the weather department here.
“As the Western disturbance persists over Kashmir, there would be more snowfall and rain across the valley during the next two days,” the met official said.
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