Snowfall, landslides block Babusar Pass and Shimshal roads in GB
Snow fell in the upper areas of ten districts, among them Skardu, Kharmang, Shigar and Ghanche, as temperatures dropped and power outages ran long.
Snowfall and landslides blocked the Babusar Pass, Shimshal Valley and several link roads across Gilgit-Baltistan on Thursday, cutting travel for residents of the upper valleys as intermittent rain and snow fell and temperatures dropped, Dawn reported.
The newspaper named Gilgit, Diamer, Ghizer, Astore, Skardu, Hunza, Nagar, Kharmang, Shigar and Ghanche among the districts where snow fell in the upper areas. People in those areas were facing transport difficulties because roads were blocked, it said.
Four of those districts, Skardu, Kharmang, Shigar and Ghanche, lie in the Baltistan division.
Prolonged power outages added to the hardship of residents, according to the report.
Dawn did not give the number of roads closed, the length of the outages, or any casualty or damage figures. Its account carried no statement from the Gilgit-Baltistan government, the district administrations or the Provincial Disaster Management Authority.
Babusar Pass and Shimshal Valley were the two routes the report named, alongside several other link roads it did not identify. Heavy snowfall and landslides were responsible for the closures, it said.
The Babusar Pass is the high mountain route linking Diamer district with the Kaghan valley in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. Shimshal is a valley in Hunza district.
The snowfall was reported on Thursday, in the second week of November, and the report was filed from Gilgit.
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