Traffic restored on Jammu-Srinagar national highway

Banihal/Jammu, Jan 14 (PTI) With improvement in the weather, the traffic on Jammu-Srinagar national highway was restored on Saturday after a day-long closure owing to snowfall and rains across Jammu and Kashmir, officials said.

The light motor vehicles were allowed from both sides, Jammu as well as Srinagar, at around 11 am after the highway was cleared of accumulated snow between the Qazigund-Banihal stretch and mudslides and landslides at several places in Ramban sector, a spokesperson of the traffic department said.

However, he said the road clearance operation is still on to make the highway traffic-worthy for heavy motor vehicles within the next couple of hours.

Most parts of Kashmir and high altitude areas of Jammu including Mata Vaishno Devi Shrine and Patnitop hill resort experienced snowfall.

Meanwhile, other plain areas in the Jammu division including the highway townships of Ramban and Udhampur were lashed by rains on Friday.

The inclement weather forced the closure of the traffic on the highway due to slippery conditions coupled with mudslides and shooting of stones from the hillocks overlooking the highway at Mehar, Cafetaria Morh and Panthiyal where a steel tunnel also suffered damages from the rolling boulders.

The officials said the road clearance operation was intensified this morning with an improvement in the weather and the highway was reopened for vehicular traffic.

An ambulance, carrying the bodies of two labourers who died in an avalanche in Ganderbal district, was allowed to move towards its destination in Padder area of Kishtwar late Friday evening.

The labourers working with a Hyderabad-based construction company, executing work on the Zojila tunnel along the Srinagar-Leh national highway, were killed in the avalanche on January 12.

The bodies of the deceased were handed over to their families for last rites, the officials said.