Gulmarg, Pahalgam receive snow; temperature improves in Valley
STATE TIMES NEWS
SRINAGAR: At least nine people went missing after a vehicle they were travelling in was hit by an avalanche in north Kashmir’s Kupwara district on Friday.
Two of the missing people have been rescued with teams of police, Army, State Disaster Response Force and Mountain Rescue holding search and rescue operations, agencies and a national television channel reported.
According to an official spokesperson, the two injured persons, who got miraculously saved are recouping at District Hospital Kupwara.
Seven people are still said to be missing. The spokesperson said that due to inclement weather, rescue operations have been halted.
The incident took place at Sadhna Top in Tangdhar area of the district around 4:00 PM. The missing people were reportedly on their way from Kupwara to Karnah in a Tata Sumo.
A Border Roads Organisation personnel, who was also hit by an avalanche in the same area, was recovered but could not be revived as there was no doctor available at the avalanche site, the television channel reported quoting sources.
Rescue operations will be extremely difficult due to the dark and temperature being several degrees below zero.
Minister for Disaster Management, Relief, Rehabilitation and Reconstruction (DMRRR), Javaid Mustafa Mir, has directed that movement of traffic should be restricted, on vulnerable roads, in the event of adverse weather predictions. He asked Divisional Commissioner Kashmir Baseer Ahmed Khan to monitor the joint rescue operations launched by Army, Police and SDRF to locate the survivors of the vehicle, that came under an avalanche at Khoni Nalla, near Sadhna Top enroute to Karnah.
This is second major incident in the past three weeks involving avalanches. Three jawans and an army porter were killed in Kupwara and Bandipora districts on December 13. In one of the incident, an avalanche hit a security installation of Army’s 20-Dogra regiment in Kupwara’s Nowgam sector that swept two soldiers who were killed.
In Bandipora’s Gurez sector, an avalanche had swept through a security installation manned by 36 Rashtriya Rifles in the Baktoor region, killing three soldierss.
Army porter Ghulam Qadir Khan, a resident of Tulail’s Kilshey village in Gurez, fell to death after slipping from a height during snowfall the same day.
Meanwhile, the twin resorts of Gulmarg and Pahalgam received light snow during the night, even as the minimum temperature marked an improvement at most places in the Kashmir Valley and Ladakh region. An official of the MET department said there was a possibility of light rain or snow at isolated places, especially in the higher reaches, in the state over the next 24 hours.
The official said while the night temperature marked an improvement at most places across Kashmir division on Thursday night, the mercury in Gulmarg and Kokernag decreased from the previous night.
Gulmarg–the famous ski-resort in north Kashmir–recorded a low of minus 9 degrees Celsius, three degrees colder from the previous night.
He said Kokernag town in south Kashmir registered a low of minus 3.4 degrees Celsius compared to minus 2.5 degrees Celsius the previous night.
Srinagar recorded the minimum temperature of minus 3.2 degrees Celsius, a slight increase from minus 3.9 degrees Celsius on Thursday, the official said.
He said the mercury in Qazigund in south Kashmir settled at a low of minus 4 degrees Celsius, up from the previous night’s minus 4.4 degrees Celsius, while Kupwara in north Kashmir recorded a low of minus 2 degrees Celsius.
The night temperature in Pahalgam recorded a low of minus 4 degrees Celsius, up from minus 4.5 degrees Celsius the previous night.
Kargil town in Ladakh region of Jammu and Kashmir continued to shiver as the minimum temperature there settled at minus 20 degrees Celsius same as the previous night, the official said.
He said the town was the coldest recorded place in the state.
Nearby Leh town recorded a minimum temperature of minus 10.3 degrees Celsius on Thursday night up from minus 14.2 degrees the previous night.
