Landslide-hit KKH reopened for traffic

MANSEHRA: The Karakoram Highway (KKH) was reopened to all sorts of traffic on Tuesday after the company executing the Dasu Hydropower Project in Upper Kohistan removed a massive landslide that had blocked the road earlier this week.

“The traffic between Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Gilgit-Baltistan has resumed after the removal of the massive landslide which had blocked the KKH earlier this week,” Tariq Ali Khan, the deputy commissioner of Upper Kohistan, told reporters on Tuesday.

The Karakoram Highway was blocked for all sorts of traffic following a landslide in the Bypass area of Upper Kohistan and only light vehicles were allowed to pass through Kass Camp Bridge - a boundary area between Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Gilgit-Baltistan.

“As the weather cleared, we deployed heavy machinery to remove the debris, and the road is now reopened for both light and heavy traffic,” Khan added.He said that a portion of the mountain, which had developed dangerous cracks along the KKH, had detached and fell into the Indus River. “The Karakoram Highway is now fully open for traffic in Kohistan, but vehicle flow remains light as this strategically important road was also blocked at several places in Gilgit-Baltistan due to heavy rainfall earlier this week,” he said.

Meanwhile, the artery connecting the Mansehra-Naran-Jalkhad road with the tourist resort of Shogran was also cleared after the Kaghan Development Authority (KDA) removed heavy snowfall from the area.“We deployed machines to clear the road after removing snow,” Assad Shahzad, Assistant Director of KDA told reporters.