Srinagar-Jammu NH remains shut for 6th day
JAMMU/SRINAGAR: The Srinagar-Jammu national highway continued to remain closed for traffic on Friday.
Flight operations were resumed at the Srinagar airport on Thursday but people faced problems due to traffic jams on the airport road and adjacent highways. “It was chaos outside the airport due to a traffic jam on the highway leading to the airport. It took me four to five hours and a change of several vehicles to reach Batamaloo,” city resident Mohammad Abdullah said. He said many people missed their flights as they couldn’t reach the airport on time.
The highway was closed for traffic past Sunday following heavy snowfall and incessant rains which triggered multiple landslides and shooting stones. With the weather improving now, it could be opened soon, said a traffic official. Currently, from Qazigund to Udhampur, there are more than 3,000 vehicles stranded on the national highway. Meanwhile, the India Meteorological Department has predicted that there won’t be fresh snowfall in the next 10 days. The night temperature in Srinagar was recorded at -1.9 degrees Celsius and in Jammu at 11.4 degree Celsius.
Road connectivity partially restored
The 270-km long Jammu-Srinagar national highway was partially restored on Friday after remaining closed for vehicular traffic for the past five days due to landslides at multiple places.
However, no fresh traffic was allowed to ply on the highway and only stranded vehicles were being cleared.
SSP traffic JS Johar said, “The highway has been partially restored and stranded vehicles are being cleared. No fresh traffic is being allowed. On Saturday also, stranded vehicles will be cleared.” Johar said that debris from the affected stretches on the highway has been cleared but still there were patches where restoration was yet to be done.
“On Friday, landslides occurred in Seri and Mehad in Ramban district. Therefore, the complete restoration will take some time but the highway has been partially restored since Friday morning,” he said, adding “around 3,000 vehicles, which have been left stranded on Jammu side of the Jawahar tunnel are being cleared.”