Himachal roads blocked after snowfall

Shimla  :  Highways and roads in many parts of Himachal Pradesh were Tuesday blocked after snowfall for the second day. Towns in upper Shimla and Manali were cut-off with snow covering the roads, officials said.

Traffic movement beyond Kufri, 15 km from here, was suspended since a large stretch of Hindustan-Tibet Road was under a thick blanket of snow.

The entire Kinnaur district and towns in Shimla district such as Narkanda, Jubbal, Kotkhai, Kumarsain, Kharapathar, Rohru and Chopal are cut-off due to heavy snow, a government official here told IANS.

Connectivity on the Kullu-Manali national highway snapped five km ahead of Manali, the officials said.

According to the weather office here, heavy snow and rain will continue till Wednesday.

Tourist destinations near here such as Kufri, Fagu, Naldehra and Narkanda experienced heavy snowfall.

Manali and nearby Solang ski slopes and Dalhousie in Chamba district too were covered in snow.

The minimum temperature in Manali, with 14 cm of snow, was minus 1.2 degree Celsius, the weather office said.

The town of Kalpa in Kinnaur, around 250 km from here, experienced a massive 54.7 cm of snow and recorded a low of minus 3.4 degrees Celsius.

Rain lashed lower areas of the state such as Dharamsala, Palampur, Solan, Nahan, Bilaspur, Una, Hamirpur and Mandi pulling down temperatures.

The minimum temperatures were 4.2 degrees Celsius in Dharamsala, which recieved 32.4 cm of rain, and 2.8 degrees in Shimla, which got 21.2 mm of rain.