Mughal Road closed, many vehicles stranded

A JCB clearing landslide near Panar bridge on Mughal Road in Poonch district on Monday. Excelsior/ Waseem.
A JCB clearing landslide near Panar bridge on Mughal Road in Poonch district on Monday. Excelsior/ Waseem.

* Traffic to be resumed today

Excelsior Correspondent

POONCH, July 8: A large number of vehicles remained stranded on the Mughal Road in Poonch district after a land slide occurred near Panar bridge today.
Official sources said that the massive landslide hit Mughal road during morning hours. A large portion of the road was affected with the land slide. The movement of the vehicles came to halt on this road, connecting Rajouri-Poonch with the Kashmir division.

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The men and machinery of Mughal Road Division of the PW(R&B) Department was pressed into service to clear the debris but the road could not be cleared till evening. It was major slide which need hours to clear it.
Meanwhile, hundreds of vehicles from both Poonch and Shopian sides were stranded on the highway near slide while, many were stopped at Behramgala and Hirpora.
Executive Engineer, PW(R&B) Department Shoket Ali and Junior Engineer, Tahir Abdullah who were on spot said that it was a major slide and frequent shooting stones halted work for several hours. They said three heavy machines were moved there which took time but we started work soon after receiving information and cleared the debris at about 8:30 PM late evening.
A Traffic Police official at Poonch said though road was cleared late evening, but the traffic will be restored in the morning. He said it was risky to allow movement of vehicles during night hours as one passenger was injured due to shooting of stones at the same point last evening.