The heaven of India, Kashmir, witnessed its first snowfall of the season with the temperature going to minus in the hill station of Gulmarg. It brings out major disruptions on roads and power supply.
It is also reported that most areas of the valley are plunged into darkness since last night as the 330 KV transmission line disrupted due to snowfall. The maximum temperature in Srinagar is seven degrees, while minus one degree in Gulmarg.
“Work is on to restore the 330 KV transmission line that supplies electricity to 200 feeders, 70 per cent of the work has been completed and it is just a matter of a few hours when electricity will be fully restored”, District Magistrate, Srinagar, Shahid Chowdhary told IANS.
In order to tackle the situation of road blockage due to snow, the snow clearance machines have been kept on standby.
Chowdhary further said that, “The snow clearance operations have started and the priority is to clear the snow from the main roads. Airport and hospital roads are being cleared first”.
The snowfall has been moderate in the plains of Kashmir while the upper region witnessed heavy snowfall.
The Meteorological Department, agency responsible for the meteorological observations predicted snow in Kashmir on Tuesday. It had also sent an alert about the temporary disruption of the surface transportation.
“The snow conditions will persist for today, but there will be a substantial improvement in the weather from tomorrow”, Sonam Lotus, Director, Meteorological Department told IANS.
“Active western disturbance and its interaction with cyclone Maha (Currently lying over the East Central Arabian Sea) is most likely to cause widespread moderate to heavy snowfall and rain in plains of Jammu and Kashmir and also in Ladakh till November 8. It will peak in the night on November 7,” the Met Department said.
The traffic of the Jammu-Srinagar National Highway has been halted due to heavy snowfall near the Jawahar tunnel due to which hundreds of trucks and passenger vehicles were stranded on the highway.
The Mughal road connecting the valley with the Pir Panjal region was closed for the traffic due to snowfall. Air traffic in Kashmir has also been halted.
The Met Department has predicted more snow on Thursday.