More than 125 civilians and truck drivers stranded in heavy snow on the Moughal Road in the Rajouri district of Jammu were on Saturday rescued by men of Indian Army’s 16 battalion of the Rashtriya Rifles.

These people were stranded since Friday night when the road got covered under a thick blanket of snow and the vehicles were unable to move. Men of the RR immediately swung into action at the worst affected Peer-ki-Gali and rescued several persons. However, about 60 truck drivers refused to leave their vehicles behind and were rescued this morning. The stretch of road recorded more than 3 feet of snowfall.

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Some of the rescued people, including aged women, were sick and have been shifted to medical centres. A woman and two minor children were shifted to the hospital at Shopian.

Kargil was the coldest place of the state with the temperature dipping to minus 4.8 degrees Celsius and Gulmarg recorded minus 3 degrees Celsius.

Almost all important highways in the state were blocked with snow and landslides as the upper reaches experienced a fresh bout of snowfall.

The strategic Jammu-Srinagar highway was shut due to landslides caused at several places because of heavy rain. Men of the Border Roads Organisation (BRO) cleared the highway for one way traffic by noon.

The Srinagar-Leh highway was also blocked with heavy snow at the Zojila Pass and several other places.

The tourist spots of Pahalgam, Gulmarg and Sonamarg also experienced good amount of snow making the tourist cheer. The temperature was recorded 0.4 and minus 3 degrees Celsius in Pahalgam and Gulmarg, respectively. Leh town recorded 0.4 while Kargil was at minus 4.8 degrees Celsius.

The Sub-Divisional Magistrate of Gulmarg, Shabbir-ul-Hassan, has advised motorists not to drive their vehicles on snow without chain mail on tyres.

Deputy Commissioner of Kupwara, Shahid Chaudhary, said that several areas of the frontier district, including Dawar, Achhoora, Chorwan Pass and Razdan Pass were covered under snow and men of the BRO were engaged in clearing the roads. An avalanche at Ape Bagh in Tulel was also being cleared.

Sonam Lotus, Director of the Srinagar based Metrological department, said that the weather was in no mood to relent. Non-stop snowing and rainfall is most likely to persist for the next 24 hours and significant improvement is expected tomorrow. Moderate to heavy snow has been reported on higher reaches, he said.

Snowfall in the higher reaches has sent chilly winds to the plains leading to a dip in the temperature as a result of which people were seen in sweaters.

According to the Met office, the minimum temperature recorded in Srinagar was 1.8 degrees Celsius.