Thatri, Oct 13: Hundreds of passengers have been stranded on Doda-Kishtwar highway (NH-1B) as the road remained closed for the vehicular movement on the second consecutive day on Wednesday.
 Entire Kishtwar district was cut off from rest of the state, last evening, after heavy boulders and landslides blocked the highway, at Kulgadi here.
 Several trucks and passenger vehicles were stranded on the highway since last evening as BEACON officials failed to restore the traffic. Locals said some of the passengers managed to transship to the other side after covering more than 10 kilometers on foot while many of them were stranded in Thatri.
 Officials said the fresh landslides and shooting stones were hampering the road clearance work and it may take few days before the traffic can be allowed.
 The highway is the only road link of the district with rest of the state. The alternate Kishtwar-Sinthan-Islamabad is incomplete and only light motor vehicles are plying on it.
 Reports from Kishtwar said the closure of highway for another few days may lead to severe fuel shortage, including kerosene, cooking gas and petroleum products.
 “Looking into the past experiences, we have already filled up patrol tanks of our vehicles”, Ishtiyaq Hussain, a local told Greater Kashmir over phone.

Lastupdate on : Wed, 13 Oct 2010 21:30:00 Makkah time
Lastupdate on : Wed, 13 Oct 2010 18:30:00 GMT
Lastupdate on : Thu, 14 Oct 2010 00:00:00 IST