The Jammu-Srinagar national highway was reopened only for stranded vehicles on Saturday after being closed for four days owing to multiple landslides and caving-in of a 60-meter stretch in Udhampur district following record rainfall earlier this week, a senior official said.
However, normal traffic is yet to resume on the 250-km all-weather road linking Kashmir with the rest of the country.
National Highway Authority of India (NHAI) Project Director, Ramban, Shubam said efforts are on to ensure early reopening of the highway for normal traffic.
“We had almost completed the restoration work at 6 pm on Friday and were hopeful of allowing traffic on the strategic highway this (Saturday) morning. But fresh overnight rains hampered our efforts,” he said.
Shubam said the work was restarted immediately on a 60-meter stretch of the road, which caved in at Benali Nallah between Chenani and Udhampur.
After taking some time to allow the boulder base to settle down, the stranded vehicles, especially those carrying perishable items, including fruit-laden trucks, oil tankers and light motor vehicles were allowed to move on from both ends in a regulated manner.
According to officials, more than 2,000 vehicles were stranded on either end of the highway after the August 26 rainfall, which flooded low-lying areas and left a trail of death and destruction in the Jammu region.
Udhampur received the highest recorded rainfall of 630 mm for the same 24-hour period ending 8.30 am on August 27, surpassing the earlier highest of 342 mm on July 31, 2019, while Jammu logged 380 mm of rainfall during the same period, the highest ever recorded in the city since 1910 when the observatory was set up.
“The rest of the highway was already cleared of landslide debris and stones at various places in the Ramban sector. The main problem was the Udhampur-Chenani stretch, and 90 per cent of the work is almost complete.
“If weather permits and there is no damage, we are likely to open the highway on Sunday for normal traffic after clearing all stranded vehicles,” the NHAI official said.
A traffic department official said the vehicles are playing on the Mughal Road that links Poonch and Rajouri districts in the Jammu region with south Kashmir’s Shopian, and the Sinthan Top road that links Kishtwar district in Jammu and south Kashmir’s Anantnag district.
There was a mudslide near Parna-Chingam along the Sinthan Top road, but it was cleared by the officials and made motorable this morning, the official said.
He said traffic is also plying on the Jammu-Pathankot national highway, though one tube each of Sahar Khad and Lakhanpur-Madhopur bridges remained closed and traffic was diverted to the second tube.