SRINAGAR : The Kashmir valley remained cut off with the rest of the country for the second day today due to closure of the 300-km-long Srinagar-Jammu national highway following landslides and shooting stones, triggered by heavy rains during the past 24 hours.
Hundreds of vehicles, including those carrying passengers, and trucks, are stranded at different places on the highway. Meanwhile, the national highway, linking the Ladakh region with Kashmir valley, historic Mughal road and Bandipora-Gurez and Synthan-Kishtwar roads also remained closed since December last year due to accumulation of snow.
Dozens of villages, including those near the Line of Control (LoC), also remained cut off with their respective district and tehsil headquarters in north Kashmir due to fresh snowfall.
A traffic police official said this morning that the highway, connecting the Kashmir valley with the rest of the country, remained closed due to shooting stones and landslides at several places, including Penthal, Sher Bibi, Ramban, Ramsu and other places.
He said the Border Roads Organisation (BRO), responsible for the maintenance of the highway,was already on the job to put through the traffic. However, at some places, portion of road had been badly damaged due to landslides.
The official said if the road is put through again, only stranded vehicles would be allowed to move towards their respective destinations. No fresh vehicle from Jammu or Srinagar will be allowed before all stranded vehicles are cleared, he said.
He said since there is a forecast for more rain, decision to allow fresh traffic will be taken only after getting green signal from BRO and traffic police officials posted at different places on the highway.
Traffic was being suspended for the safety and security of the passengers, he said, adding that all those who had planned to undertake the travel must contact Police Control Room (PCR) or Traffic Control Rooms (RCRs) at Jammu or Srinagar before starting the journey.
Hundreds of light vehicles, including those carrying passengers, which left Jammu and Srinagar yesterday before the road was closed, are stranded on the highway at different places.
A group of tourists from Maharashtra — stranded at Qazigund on way back to Jammu — said they have railway booking for tomorrow.
However, they were satisfied with the fact that they could see snowfall and Tulip garden as they had come to see accumulated snow on mountains.
Traffic official said to avoid any accident or traffic jam, authorities had already imposed restriction on traffic movement as rainfall all along the Srinagar-Jammu national highway during the past about one week has resulted in shrinking of existing road formation at some places due to which two heavy vehicles cannot pass simultaneously at these locations.
The BRO has already started repair work so that heavy vehicles are also allowed to ply from both sides.
However, before the stretches could be made worthy for two way traffic, one way regulated movement of vehicles with certain restrictions has been enforced for hassle-free movement.
He said passenger and private vehicles will be allowed to ply from both sides while heavily vehicles will ply from one side only with some restrictions.
However, no heavy vehicle will be allowed from opposite direction till further orders. Meanwhile, early reopening of historic Mughal road, linking Shopian in south Kashmir with Rajouri and Poonch in Jammu region, suffered a set back following three to four feet of fresh snowfall during the past 48 hours.
The road, which is seen as alternative to Srinagar-Jammu national higwhay remained closed since December last year. Though the snow clearance operation had been started from both sides of the Pir-ki-Gali, fresh heavy snowfall has further delayed reopening of the road.
Shopian also received moderate snowfall while the upper reaches had heavy to very heavy snowfall during the past 24 hours. The Synthan-Kishtwar road also remained closed for all sorts of traffic since December last year due to snow.
The national highway, connecting the Ladakh region with Kashmir also remained closed since December last year due to accumulation of several feet of snow. However, due to less snowfall this winter, the road was scheduled to reopen early this year.
But fresh snowfall during the past two days has hampered snow clearance operation. There was fresh snowfall at several places, including Zojila, Sonmarg and Meenmarg on the national highway, official sources said, adding that the snow clearance operation by BRO was going on to put through the highway.
Though the snow clearance operation on Zojila pass was also completed last week, fresh snowfall could cause some delay in reopening of the highway.
This time the BRO had announced that the highway would be put through for traffic about a month earlier because of less snowfall this time. The Union Government has already approved construction of a tunnel at Zojila to make it all weather road.
The road linking the border town of Gurez and dozens of other villages near the Line of Control (LoC) with district headquarters Bandipora remained closed since December last year. There was also fresh snowfall on all upper reaches in the north Kashmir. (AGENCIES)
Follow our WhatsApp channel