Kashmir Wednesday experienced fresh rains and snowfall, leading to disruption in traffic movement along the Srinagar-Jammu highway, officials said.
Seniorsuperintendent of traffic police (rural), Muzaffar Ahmad Shah, told GreaterKashmir that landslides triggered by incessant rains at several places inRamban areas led to traffic disruption in traffic movement on the 300-km-longhighway for a few hours.
“The roadhad to be closed for a few hours, but traffic is now plying normally,” he said,adding that traffic movement was allowed from Jammu towards Srinagar for bothLMVs and HMVs.
Meanwhile,most Kashmir areas experienced light snowfall and moderate rains Wednesday.
A localmeteorological department official said moderate snowfall was experienced inGulmarg, Pahalgam, Machil, Gurez, Sadhna Pass and near Jawahar tunnel on theSrinagar-Jammu highway. The plains including Srinagar received rains.
The freshprecipitation led to dip in mercury, with people at many places feeling harshwinter-like chill.
The higherreaches of northern Kupwara district witnessed snowfall from early morning,leading to closure of border roads.
Meanwhile,Srinagar recorded 17.4mm mix of rain and snow, Qazigund 13.0mm, Pahalgam 8.4mm,Kupwara 41.2mm, Kokernag 4.6mm and Gulmarg 22.0 mm.
Banihaltown, situated along the highway, received highest 17.7mm rain during the last24 hours (ending 0830 hours) Wednesday, a spokesman at the local weather officesaid, adding that Jammu received 12.8mm rain during the same period.
“We expectmore precipitation in next 24 hours,” the Met official said, adding thatweather will start improving from Friday afternoon.
Meanwhile,the opening of the Srinagar-Leh road is likely to get delayed this year due toaccumulation of heavy snow and prolonged unfavorable weather conditions,officials said Wednesday.
The road wasclosed in December last year.
“The snowclearance on the Srinagar-Leh road was started early this month by the BorderRoads Organisation (BRO). A large stretch of the road was cleared of snow, butfresh snowfall in the area has hampered the clearance operation as more snowhas now accumulated on the road,” a BRO official said.
According toreports, fresh one-foot snow was witnessed at Sonamarg and Zojila Pass Wednesday.
“Our men andmachinery from both Beacon and Vijayak projects are working to make the roadmotorable as soon as possible,” captain Shubham Sood of the BRO told GreaterKashmir.
“Althoughthere is too much snow this time, which has broken the record of the past manyyears, we are trying our best to open this axis at the earliest for themovement of traffic. We have deployed all our equipment and manpower for thepurpose,” he said.
He said the road up to the health resort of Sonamarg has “almost” been cleared.
Irfan Raina