Chitral completely blocked after rain/snowfall

CHITRAL, Feb 5: The two-day-long heavy rain and snowfall has completely crippled life in Chitral with all road and communication systems coming to a grinding halt. [caption id="attachment_7595" align="alignleft" width="300"] Chitral town snowfall.–GH Farooqui Feb 6, 2013.[/caption] When this report was filed at 8pm on Tuesday, Chitral town had received over one foot of snow but the rain/snowfall had stopped with the sky fully overcast. There is no electricity for the last two days and even supply from the Singur power station has been stopped. Besides, PTCL network is also jammed and people are facing hardship in getting in touch with each other. Due to the closure of the Lowari Pass, Chitral remains cut-off from rest of the country. Even roads to all the sub-valleys like Garam Chashma, Mastuj, Torkhow and Molkhow are closed. A large number of people are stranded in Chitral waiting for the opening of the roads to go to their destinations. Besides, Chitralis in a large number are also stranded in upper Dir and Peshawar. The erratic PIA flights from Peshawar and Islamabad are also not being operated for long even before the rain spell. As the area remained completely blocked, the local administration remains in deep slumber with no official coming out to resolve the public issues. Even the district administration ahs failed to remove the snow from the roads within Chitral town what to talk of thinking about the blockades of other arteries of the district. As the rain/snowfall stopped on Tuesday evening, the residents of Chitral town, Denin and Balach were seen removing snow from the rooftops of their houses and the link roads. Rush was also seen in the market to purchase daily-use items as the market is running out of supplies due to blockade of roads. People here while talking to chitraltoday.net condemned the government functionaries and the so-called public representatives for their apathy towards resolving public issues. They said not a single official or public representative had come out and worked to resolve the problems being faced by them.]]>