Shimla: The promise of a ‘White Winter’ in Himachal Pradesh has left thousands of tourists stranded across the state. Heavy rainfall and intense snowfall has crippled normal life across the state, blocking roads and leaving people stranded for hours.
Tourists from across the country started to pour into Shimla to Manali and lesser known hill getaways like Chail, after snowfall was reported after three months of dry weather. The extended weekend was an opportunity to get away for people in north India.
What the tourists had not bargained for was extreme weather that created chaos on mountain roads, leaving families stranded for hours in sub zero temperatures.
According to reports, traffic movement has come to a near halt in several tourist-heavy belts. The massive traffic congestion, which began on Friday evening, has continued unabated for over 24 hours, leaving thousands of tourists stranded inside their vehicles amid freezing temperatures, as reported by timesnow.in.
The Hindustan-Tibet Road was covered in snow, totally suspending traffic movement beyond Dhalli, around 10 km from Shimla. This made travel extremely dangerous.
NDTV has quoted official data as reporting as many as 685 roads blocked across the state. The worst-hit is the tribal district of Lahaul and Spiti, where 292 roads are shut. This is followed by Chamba with 132 blocked roads, Mandi with 126, Kullu with 79, Sirmour with 29, Kinnaur with 20, Kangra with four, Una with two, and Solan with one road closed, a report said.
The arrival of tourists has accentuated the situation with hotels in Manali and surrounding regions operating at nearly 100 percent occupancy.
While rooms are full, roads are frozen. Long traffic snarls stretch endlessly along mountain highways, with reports of jams running up to eight kilometres in some stretches. Vehicles are barely moving as snow covered roads turn slippery, forci
ng authorities to shut down hundreds of routes across the state.
Officials said that several areas have been effectively cut off. The entire Kinnaur district remains isolated, while multiple towns in Shimla district, including Narkanda, Jubbal, Kotkhai, Kumarsain, Kharapathar, Rohru and Chopal, have lost road connectivity due to relentless snowfall, officials said.
Chail, a popular tourist destination near Shimla, is among the worst affected. Heavy snowfall has transformed the Chail highway into a dangerous slip zone, triggering a massive traffic jam that has lasted for several hours. Tourists, including families with children, remain stuck inside vehicles deep inside forest stretches, with no access to food, water or basic facilities.
With restaurants and roadside eateries shutting doors, many travellers were caught completely unprepared. Some tourists used small portable gas stoves, they had carried along, to cook instant noodles and boil eggs on the roadside just to survive the long wait. Others were not as lucky. Several stranded travellers did not even have blankets to shield themselves from the biting cold, despite temperatures plunging below zero.
The situation grew more alarming as night fell. With fuel running low and heaters switched off to conserve petrol, stranded tourists lit makeshift bonfires along the forested highway to keep warm.
Himachal Pradesh has been put on high alert as an active western disturbance sweeps across the state, triggering heavy snowfall and rain and crippling normal life in several districts.
The state government on Saturday issued a statewide advisory, warning of intense weather conditions between January 26 and 28, as snowfall intensified across higher reaches and rain lashed mid-hill areas.
The Indian Meteorological Department attributed the extreme conditions to a western disturbance, a storm system originating from the Mediterranean-Caspian Sea region that will be moving across Afghanistan and Pakistan before impacting northwest India. According to the weather office, the system is expected to remain active till Sunday, bringing further spells of rain and snow.
A yellow warning has been issued for dense fog and cold wave conditions in Kangra, Mandi, Solan, Una, Bilaspur, Hamirpur and Sirmour for Sunday, adding to the concern.