Snowfall cuts off Valley; highway stays shut, flights cancelled

Azhar Qadri

Tribune News Service

Srinagar, January 17

Fresh snowfall across the Kashmir valley on Tuesday has cut off connectivity with the region as it blocked a crucial highway and forced cancellation of flights.

The Srinagar-Jammu highway remained shut for the second consecutive day due to the downpour, which is continuing intermittently since early Monday. The Qazigund sector, home to the Jawahar tunnel and the gateway to Kashmir valley, received heavy snowfall, officials of state traffic department said.

The 300-km highway, which connects the Kashmir valley with the Jammu division and the rest of the country, is a crucial supply route into the region and is often shut for vehicular traffic during snowfall.

The officials said some stretches of the highway had become “extremely slippery” for the vehicles and it will take “some time for it to be traffic worthy”.

The latest snowfall, which is likely to continue intermittently and with varying intensity, is the second major spell within a month in the region, which is in the midst of winter’s harshest phase.

The snowfall has also forced cancellation of flights arriving at and departing from the region’s only civilian airport. Sharad Kumar, director of Srinagar International Airport, said 29 flights which were scheduled to arrive at and depart from the airport were cancelled due to the inclement weather. The official said only one flight, carrying passengers from Jammu to Srinagar, could operate today before the operations were shut at the airport.

The state Meteorological Department in its forecast bulletin said light to moderate rain and snow would continue to occur at most places in the state during the next 24 hours.

The department said the spread of precipitation would shrink during Thursday and Friday, when rain and snowfall would occur at only scattered and isolated places.

The two back-to-back spells of snow this month have caused significant precipitation in the region and ended the lengthy dry spell which had lasted for a record duration of four months.

In Srinagar, the state’s summer capital, moderate snowfall has continued since morning and has made the roads slippery, slowing down the traffic.