Jammu-Srinagar national highway shut for maintenance work

The Jammu-Srinagar national highway remained closed for thesecond consecutive day on Sunday as authorities decided to carry outmaintenance work and did not allow any fresh vehicular traffic from eitherside, officials said.

The 270-km highway, which is the only all-weather roadlinking Kashmir with the rest of the country, was blocked by a massivelandslide near Higni-Ramsoo in Ramban district around 9 am on Saturday, leavingthousands of Jammu-bound vehicles stranded.

   

After a day-long hectic effort, the highway was cleared ofthe blockade and some stranded vehicles late on Saturday, the officials said.

However, they said no fresh vehicle was either allowed fromJammu or Srinagar on Sunday to allow maintenance of the road which was damagedby the landslides and shooting stones from the hillocks overlooking the highwayat various places between Panthiyal and Ramsoo over the past week.

In view of maintenance of the highway, no vehicular movementincluding that of security forces was allowed from either side of the highwayon Sunday, a traffic department official said adding that the Jammu-boundstranded vehicles would be cleared first once the road is made navigable again.

He said a decision to allow the vehicular traffic would betaken later in the day after a fresh review of the condition of the road andweather prediction.

The weatherman has forecast widespread rain and snow acrossJammu and Kashmir over the next two days.

The traffic on the highway plies alternatively from Srinagarand Jammu since December last year in view of the ongoing work on thefour-laning highway project.

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