Traffic to popular tourist destinations of Shimla, Manali, Chamba and Dalhousie that were cut off from the rest of Himachal Pradesh after snowfall were restored yesterday after two days, officials said.
Major roads including the Shimla-Manali and Shimla-Chandigarh national highways have been opened for traffic, an official said.
Shimla, which received 53cm of snowfall, recorded a minimum temperature of minus 0.4 degrees Celsius. The maximum temperature was 6.9 degrees.
Kalpa in Kinnaur district saw a low of minus 3.8 degrees, while it was 6.8 degrees in Dharamsala.
However, Kinnaur district and towns in Shimla district like Narkanda, Jubbal, Kotkhai, Kumarsain, Kharapathar, Rohru and Chopal are still cut off due to heavy snow, the official said.
A government spokesperson said that no state-run bus has been plying in upper Shimla since Saturday morning as a large number of vehicles were stuck between Kufri and Narkanda.
Meanwhile, life continued to remain disrupted in Kashmir Valley as heavy snowfall blocked the Srinagar-Jammu highway for the third day.
According to officials, rail services between the valley and Bannihal town in the Jammu region will resume after track clearance.
Air and road traffic continued to remain shut as no flights operated to and from the Srinagar International Airport in the morning for the second day.
Authorities at Srinagar airport said visibility had improved yesterday morning and flight operations were likely to resume in the afternoon.
“There has been an improvement in the visibility and we are hopeful of resuming flight operations from the afternoon,” said an airport official.
Traffic department officials said snow clearance operations in Bannihal and Patnitop sectors of the highway had started.
Chickens forage for food after snowfall in Pahalgam in Jammu and Kashmir yesterday.
