Tourists stuck on Rangri-Manali road

Dipender Manta

Tribune News Service

Mandi, January 6

Many tourists spent a sleepless night in their vehicles on the Rangri to Manali road on Wednesday due to a long traffic jam following heavy snowfall in the region. The road has become slippery for the movement of vehicles due snow deposits on the ground.

According to tourists, their vehicles skidded while driving between Manali and Rangri on Wednesday night. As a result, hundreds of vehicles remained stuck till morning. They were forced to spend the night in their vehicles in bone-chilling cold.

Pradeep Saini, a tourist from Gurugram, said, “It was a horrible experience. We were stuck at multiple places as our car skidded off the road. We negotiated the first steep slippery point after efforts for two hours. Just 3 km before Manali, we got stuck in a long jam. We tried to move forward for nearly three hours. Eventually, we abandoned our vehicle and started walking towards Manali town. We reached at our hotel around 3 am.”

Kullu SP Gurdev Chand Sharma said that a few vehicles skidded off the road near Manali, leading to a long traffic jam. The vehicles were removed from the area with the help of cranes this morning while the police took the stranded tourists to nearby hotels.

Atal Tunnel road restored

The Border Roads Organisation (BRO) started snow clearance operations on the Manali-Leh highway on Thursday after the weather turned favourable. The roads between Manali and Kothi and the one leading to the Atal Tunnel were restored.