Passengers suffer due to closure of KKH at Jijal

MANSEHRA: Hundreds of passengers travelling between Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) and Gilgit-Baltistan (GB) and intra-Kohistan region remained stranded the entire day as the Karakoram Highway couldn’t be cleared to traffic on Tuesday.

“I am on my way to my duty in Upper Kohistan but stranded in traffic along with a large number of passengers travelling between KP and GB,” one Mohammad Ali told reporters.

The landslides triggered by the recent rains in parts of Lower Kohistan blocked the Karakoram Highway, suspending traffic between KP and GB in the Jijal area. “Though rest of the landslides have been removed, passengers and motorists are stranded in queues of vehicles on both sides of the KKH in the Jijal area of Lower Kohistan,” he added.

The landslides and flooding torrents had blocked the KKH in various places some two days ago but traffic between both federating units couldn’t be restored.

Meanwhile, the artery linking the Mansehra-Naran-Jalkhad Road with the tourist resort of Shogran was cleared for traffic partially by the Kaghan Development Authority.

The authority officials rescued tourists stranded in Shogran following a blockade of that artery. The Kaghan, Konsh and Siran valleys in Mansehra and Spat and Kandia valleys in Kohistan had received the heaviest snowfall of the season during the last three days.

In a related development, after a long dry winter in Gilgit-Baltistan, it has been snowing and raining for the past three days where all telecom services, including the Internet, were shut down in the region immediately after the earthquake that occurred on Monday night.

After rains and landslides, the Karakoram Highway has been closed for traffic at several places on the Gilgit section, while many vehicles have been damaged due to rocks falling from the mountains at the Diamer Bhasha Dam site. A large number of tourists and local travellers are also trapped.

In the four districts of Baltistan division, snowfall has been going on intermittently for three days due to which the upper areas of the four districts have been cut off from other areas, while the Baltistan Highway has been affected due to landslides at several places. Gilgit-Baltistan Disaster Management Director General Safdar Khan told The News that immediately after the earthquake on Monday night, landslides had occurred at various places, but there were no immediate report of loss of life or property.

For the first time in history, terrible effects of climate change have appeared in the region as there was no snow for three months during the winter and the weather was also warmer than in the past. There is a threat of scarcity of water and all major cities and villages including Skardu city may face shortages of water for irrigation.