After heavy snowfall, road, air traffic resumes in Valley

Srinagar-Jammu highway cleared for traffic, Mughal Road and Srinagar-Sonamarg-Gumri road still closed

- Ashiq Hussain

SRINAGAR: Two days after heavy snowfall in the region that threw life out of gear, surface and air traffic resumed in Kashmir valley on Sunday.

The 270-km Srinagar-Jammu National Highway was opened for traffic and the flight operations also resumed at Srinagar International Airport.

Director of the Srinagar airport Javed Anjum said that the flight operations resumed fully around noon owing to low visibility in the morning.

"The flight operations have started. In the morning, the weather was not good for operations owing to low visibility (below 400 m) and dense fog causing the flights to divert," he said. As many as 44 total flights were cancelled with seven cancellations on Friday and all 37 flights on Saturday due to bad weather and heavy snow accumulation.

He said that they have 23 additional flights on Sunday. "Their operations are normal as scheduled and one additional flight is for the evening. Even though it was Sunday, the Air Force has allowed us to work till 7 pm which will allow the dissipation of the major rush," he said.

The Srinagar airport is under the operational control of Indian Air Force (IAF) while the Airport Authority of India controls only the boarding and lodging operations of the airport.