Only stranded vehicles to be cleared on highway today

Srinagar: Parts of J&K were lashed by rain on Tuesday while a few higher reaches received fresh snowfall. Traffic on the Srinagar-Jammu highway was affected due to landslides and slippery conditions triggered by rains.

The meteorological office in Srinagar had predicted a three-day wet spell in Jammu and Kashmir from 5th to 7th April. However, the Indian Meteorological Department (IMD) has predicted the wet spell to continue across Jammu and Kashmir till 9th April, Friday.

Light to moderate rainfall was received in plains of Kashmir valley on Tuesday while the upper reaches of Sonamarg in Ganderbal district received two to four inches of snowfall. Earlier, on Monday, the upper reaches of Kupwara and Bandipora including Karnah, Z-Gali and Gurez had received about two to four inches of snowfall.

As per officials, in the 24 hours up to Monday evening, Srinagar city recorded about 7.1 mm of rainfall. Qazigund recorded about 4.0 mm, Pahalgam 6.0 mm, and Kokernag 6.6 mm during the same period. Areas of north Kashmir received major rainfall, with Gulmarg recording over 23 mm of rainfall and Kupwara district recording about 15 mm.

Parts of Jammu region also received rainfall with Banihal recording about 7.4 mm of rainfall and Batote nearly 3.0 mm of rainfall, among other areas of the region. In Jammu city, as per the official bulletin, only traces of rainfall were recorded.

The inclement weather conditions are likely to start improving by Wednesday afternoon across Kashmir valley. Following which, as per officials, the weather is expected to remain mainly dry across the valley till next week.

“The weather will start gradually improving from Tuesday afternoon and by late evening there will be significant improvement in weather across the valley. After this, the weather is expected to remain dry till 12th April,” Dr Mukhtar Ahmad, Deputy Director of the meteorological office in Srinagar, told Kashmir Reader.

Traffic on the Srinagar to Jammu national highway was affected for some time on Tuesday after landslides hit the highway in the afternoon. The slippery condition of the road between Banihal and Ramban gave a tough time to commuters.

Jatindar Singh Johar, SSP Traffic, Ramban, told Kashmir Reader that there wasn’t any major disruption of vehicular movement. However, he said, a landslide at Magerkote in Ramban and slippery condition of the road affected traffic movement for a small period of time.

“The traffic is through on the highway. There wasn’t any major disruption of traffic except the landslide at Magerkote. That was cleared soon and the traffic was streamlined. The slippery conditions triggered by the rain posed challenges to the smooth movement of vehicles, however,” Johar said.

For Wednesday, Johar added, there will be no traffic movement on the highway as the department will clear all the traffic including trucks stranded on the road.

Reader correspondent