Sub-zero temperature in Kashmir has slowed down daily life and many areas were cut off as a result of fresh snowfall and slippery road conditions.
Srinagar, reeling under sub-zero temperatures, recorded minus 3.2 degrees Celsius, 2 degrees below normal, the previous night.
As temperatures take a nosedive with each passing day, people start their day late in the morning, with window panes of vehicles covered in frost and the Dal lake’s fringes forming a sheath of ice.
“I am posted at Tral in south Kashmir. It takes me half an hour to clear the window panes in the morning to drive 45 km. I have to constantly keep the heaters on inside the car to avoid frost accumulation on my windows,” said Rayees Qureshi, a banker.
Non-availability of electricity, the main source of heating rooms, continues to fuel protests in parts of the Valley.
While the schools are shut and the civil secretariat is functioning from winter capital Jammu, the Valley is bracing for the upcoming ‘chillai kalan’, a local nomenclature for the severest 40-day winter period.
Most people have started using ‘hamam’ rooms where firewood is used beneath the floor, made of special stones, to keep it warm night and day.
Bone-chilling
Night temperatures at the famous tourist spots of Gulmarg in north and Pahalgam in south have also dropped to minus 10.4 degrees Celsius and minus 7.7 degrees Celsius, respectively.
The sub-zero temperatures have impacted the pace of life too with most shopkeepers shutting down around sundown. “It is difficult to do business in open shops after sundown. So we close early these days,” said Nazeer Mir, a shopkeeper in Lal Chowk.
Most shops and business centres open up late in the morning due to the frosty conditions. Snow and frosty road conditions have already forced the closure of Bandipore-Gurez Road in north and Simthan-Kishtwar Road in south Kashmir for traffic.
“The 434-km Srinagar-Leh Road will be closed from December 20,” said a traffic department order.
