Rajouri, Aug 10: Vehicular traffic movement on vital Rajouri- Kotranka road remained closed for over six hours and on GMC Rajouri road for three hours due to landslides, flash flood amid heavy rainfall.
Twenty kanals of fertile agriculture land also sank. In most of the areas of border district Rajouri, heavy rainfall occurred last night and downpour lasted for over seven hours.
Locals said that heavy to very heavy rainfall occurred in areas of Nagrota, Palma, Saaltar in Rajouri and widespread damage of agriculture fields and other properties have taken place.
They said that amid heavy rainfall, seven small to heavy landslides occurred in area between Nagrota and Palma with two heavy landslides on main two lane road referred to as Rajouri – Kotranka – Budhal road.
At one of the place, some debris of landslide slipped on road .Huge debris of slide slipped on road at second place with around 150 meters of road got covered under debris blocking it for movement of vehicles.
Atleast, four residential structures are also under risk of collapse and damage due to this massive landslide.
Landslides caused blockage of traffic on main road at around 5 AM causing severe hardships to people especially employees and students.
“Road restoration work was launched by authorities on Saturday morning that continued for over six hours and road was restored for traffic on Friday late afternoon,” the officials said adding that over 600 vehicles were stranded on both sides that were cleared in afternoon.
Alongside, the riverlet flowing from Kheora locality of Rajouri town also got flooded in wee morning hours on Saturday with water submerged the main road of Government Medical College Rajouri blocking traffic.
Locals said that amid heavy rainfall, the rivulet got flooded and riverlet water started to overflow from it and the main road from Gujjar Mandi to GMC Rajouri got submerged under water and vehicles from both sides got stuck on two sides. The road got restored only after water descended.