Snowfall paralyses life in Himachal, 1 dead in Shimla
BITING COLD State capital under 3ft snow, homeless bear the brunt due to lack of shelters
SHIMLA: A man died of cold at the inter-state bus terminal here, as record snowfall since 1992 and electricity and water supply shortage crippled normal life acrossHimachalPradesh.Majority of roads connecting tourist towns were blocked for traffic.
Pratap Singh, a 44-year-old resident of Shilai in Sirmaur district, died at the ISBT on Saturday night. Sources said he was a porter at the bus terminal, and was drunk. Police handed over the body to his relatives after postmortem examination.
Shimla received around three feet of snow, and recorded a minimum of minus 0.4°C. Kalpa recorded a minimum of minus 3.8°C, and Keylong minus 4°C. The day temperature in the state capital was 6 °C on Sunday.
Lack of proper arrangements caused severe inconvenience to the homeless. Many people were seen under rain shelters but those were not enough to save them from the biting cold.
Morethan500roads,including major bus routes, were affected. Uprooted trees damaged power lines in the capital, resulting in outage in many areas. In the freezing temperature, the residents remained indoors, while slow progress on clearing the snow from the roads affected traffic .
Thedailymilkandnewspaper supplies were also affected, and residentsanticipatingmoresnow wereseenstockingessentialcommodities.
Hospitals were the most affected. In absence of electricity, patients and their attendants at the premier Indira Gandhi Medical College Hospital and Kamla Nehru Hospital had a harrowing time. Emergency services were run on generators.
“There is no power in our area for the past two days. God knows when electricity supply will be restored,” said a Shimla resident Ayush Bhalaik.
In higher altitude areas, 80-100 cm of snowfall was recorded. The Shimla meteorological centre has predicted more snowfall in isolated places . Farmer across the state, however, were elated. After a three-month dry spell, the heavy snowfall is expected to benefit fruit growers.