ISLAMABAD: People traveling to Pakistan’s northern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province and Gilgit-Baltistan region over the Eid Al-Adha holidays were left stranded on Friday after the main Karakoram Highway and connecting roads were cut off due to heavy rainfall.
Heavy monsoon rains, coupled with strong winds, lashed areas such as Shangla’s Bisham tehsil and Hazara’s Kohistan, Battagram, and Torghar districts, causing streams and rivers to overflow and leading to blockades and road closures.
“Karakoram Highway was obstructed at over 30 points, and passengers were stuck on both tracks of the highway, particularly tourists traveling to GB and other northern areas,” Bisham Station House Officer Bakht Zahir told media, adding that authorities were trying to clear the blockades.
Ghulam Abbas, the deputy director for the National Highway Authority in Shangla and Kohistan, also confirmed the road blockades and said the Frontier Works Organization was clearing the road for “one-side traffic initially”.
Just days ago, three people were killed and eight were injured in rain-related incidents in different parts of KP. Lightning strikes across Pakistan’s eastern Punjab province also killed at least 10 people earlier this week as heavy pre-monsoon rains lashed the region.
The Pakistan Meteorological Department had predicted windstorms, thunderstorms and rain in Abbottabad, Mansehra, Haripur, Battagram, Torghar, Kohistan, Shangla, Chitral, Lower and Upper Dir, Swat, Buner, Malakand, Bajaur, Mohmand, Mardan, Swabi, Nowshera, Charsadda, Peshawar, Khyber, Kohat, Hangu, Karak, Orakzai, Kurram, Bannu, Lakki Marwat, Tank, Dera Ismail Khan, and North and South Waziristan districts in the next few days.
More than 1,700 people were killed and 8 million were displaced by floods last year, which also destroyed about a million homes and businesses across the country of 220 million people, disaster management officials say.
