Men, machinery pressed; will clear roads soon: IGP Traffic
Air sorties for stranded passengers today
Nadeem Nadu
Srinagar: The nearly 300-km-long Srinagar-Jammu National Highway (NH) was again closed on Monday with fresh landslides occurring at a few places along the road, a day after it was reopened to traffic.
The only all-weather road connecting the Valley to the rest of India, the highway was opened on Sunday for one-way traffic after remaining closed for four days.
“The National Highway was once again closed for traffic as fresh landslides occurred at a few places along the highway,” a Traffic Department official said here.
A portion of the road in Panthyal was damaged because of landslide, he said.
No traffic was allowed to ply from either side of the highway this morning, the official said.
The road was closed on Wednesday after heavy rains triggered landslides at many places in Banihal and Ramban sectors.
The official said efforts were being made to make the National Highway two-way traffic worthy as soon as possible.
Meanwhile, thousands of passengers who had left Jammu yesterday morning are stranded at different places on the highway, particularly at Ramban, Ramsu and Batote.
The passengers had to face tremendous hardships due to the sudden closure of the highway. “We have nothing eat and have been left on god’s mercy,” the passengers said.
Meanwhile, IGP Traffic, Jagjit Singh Kumar told local news agency that the highway was closed again after the shooting stones rolled down from hills at a few places. “The men and machinery has been pressed to clear the roads. We have cleared the roads at a few places while the others will be cleared soon,” he said.
He further said that after the road clearance work, the stranded vehicles will be allowed first to ply towards their destinations.
Meanwhile, the stranded passengers will be airlifted from Srinagar Airport towards Udhampur on 14th March 2017 at 8.30am.
The Jammu and Kashmir government is arranging special air sorties for passengers stranded in the Kashmir valley.
According to Divisional Commissioner Kashmir, the administration has arranged special air sorties for stranded passengers in Kashmir.
The stranded passengers will be airlifted from Srinagar Airport towards Udhampur on 14th March 2017 at 8.30am. All those passengers who want to avail this service are advised to reach SRTC yard Srinagar at 8a.m on 14th March where from they will be transported to Srinagar Airport.
Comments are closed.