Jammu-srinagar highway reopens after four days
RELIEF One-way traffic allowed, over 5,000 vehicles were stranded on the NH, flight operations resumes
SRINAGAR: The vehicles stranded on Jammu-srinagar National Highway were allowed to move towards Jammu on Friday after the road was thrown open for traffic after four days following improvement in weather.
The all-weather road connecting the Valley with the rest of the country was closed on Monday after snowfall across Jawahar Tunnel and multiple landslide in the Banihal-ramban sector due to rains and snow.
“One-way traffic has been allowed to move on the highway from Srinagar to Jammu, No fresh traffic will be allowed from Jammu,” a traffic officials said.
All flight operations at the Srinagar international airport also resumed.
Officials said that the 270-km highway was cleared of the snow and landslides on Thursday evening paving way for the 5,000 stranded vehicles to move.
“There was not much movement of vehicles during the night owing to slippery conditions at Shaitan Nallah. Hardly 100 odd vehicles were able to cross. The actual traffic started in the morning,” said superintendent of traffic (Rural), Muzaffar Shah.
The road has mostly remained closed, on and off, owing to landslides and bad weather intermittently for the past 10 days.
“The 5,000 vehicles, most of which are trucks, have been stranded for the past 10 days. The movement is slow as the condition of road is not very good. Let’s hope that all stranded vehicles get cleared,” he said.
Following partial restoration of air traffic at Srinagar Airport on Thursday, the flight operations resumed fully on Friday.
“Today all flights have taken off and landed normally. On Thursday, we could operate flights in the afternoon following clearance of snow from the runway,” said Santosh Dhoke, airport director.