Shimla wears white mantle, again
Vehicular movement on 75 lateral roads in district affected; MET predicts more snow
SHIMLA : Cold wave conditions intensified across Himachal Pradesh on Sunday with the capital city and many areas of upper and lower hills in Himachal Pradesh receiving fresh bouts of snow, the meteorological department said.
Shivering at sub-zero temperatures, tourist places like Kufri, Dalhousie and Manali witnessed snowfall on Saturday.
Vehicular movement on National Highway 5 connecting Ferozpur in Punjab to Shipkila village near China border, was disrupted as the highway was closed on Saturday night.
“The highway was closed at 2:00am on Saturday night as a precautionary measure due to slippery road conditions. However, after remaining closed for nearly 14 hours, the highway was thrown open to traffic at 4:00pm on Sunday evening. No vehicles were left stranded,” a traffic official said.
The snowfall snapped internal road links in some areas of the district, including Theog and Narkanda, which remained cutoff due to snow, while vehicular movement remained disrupted in Jubbal, Kotkhai, Rohru , Rampur and Chopal.
Traffic on as many as 75 lateral roads in the district was affected. Vehicles did not ply between Sanjauli and Lakkar Bazar following thick ice cover on the road near Indira Gandhi Medical College.
The road beyond Dhalli also remained closed for traffic, official said, adding that snow clearance machines have been deployed on the highway by the district administration.
Shimla has received 3.5cm snowfall so far bringing down the minimum temperature to 0.2 degree celsius, Shimla Meteorological department centre director Manmohan Singh said.
Dalhousie in Chamba district got 30 cm snowfall, Manali in Kullu district 23cm and Kufri in Shimla district 8cm snowfall, Singh said, adding that Chail and Saluni witnessed 2.5cm snowfall each.
Tribal district Lahaul and Spiti’s administrative centre Keylong got 9cm snowfall whereas another tribal district Kinnaur’s Kalpa received 8 cm snowfall, he said.
The minimum temperature in Kufri was minus 3.4 degrees Celsius, Dalhousie minus 1.7 degrees celsius and it was minus 1.6 degrees Celsius in Manali, he added
POWER OUTAGES
Owing to fresh spell of snow, electricity supply in some regions, including Kinnaur and Manali, was affected with areas reeling under intermittent power outages, said Kinnaur deputy commissioner Arvinder Kumar.
The Meteorological department office has predicted more snow during next 24 hours .Hoteliers cheered in the hope that more tourists will come in large numbers in the coming days.
The lower regions of the state experienced widespread rains with Seobagh and Bhunter in Kullu recording 23 mm and15 mm of snow, respectively. Dharamshala recorded 6 mm of rainfall while Sundernagar experienced 10 mm of rain during the last 24 hours. Tourists in Shimla, known for the imperial grandeur of its buildings that were once institutions of power when the town served as the summer capital of British India, were seen making merry by hurling snowballs at one another.