Naran Traffic Halted after key Bridge washes away with Flash Floods

Flash floods on Tuesday night in the Battal section of the Naran- Kaghan Valley washed away a bridge on the Mansehra-Naran-Jalkhad Road.

Due to the bridge’s collapse, transportation between Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Gilgit-Baltistan was halted, leaving many travelers, including tourists, stranded.

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The National Highway Authority had moved equipment to the location to erect a temporary bridge for traffic restoration, according to deputy commissioner Adnan Khan Bittani.

He claimed that rescue and rehabilitation efforts had been impeded by the ongoing rains, but he anticipated an early pick-up in those efforts. He predicted that the residents of the valley, particularly the visitors, would soon depart for their destinations. The rain degraded some of the Mansehra-Naran-Jalkhad Road, but huge landslides shut it in many places. Long lines of cars on both sides of the closed road made traveling miserable, especially for ladies and children. Landslides not only blocked highways but also changed the Kunhar River’s water flow. A witness stated that they also hit a pickup truck, wounding the driver and that it might take days to clean the road of the pile of soil and rock that had descended from the hills.

Saith Matiullah, president of the Kaghan Hoteliers Association, expressed his wish for a speedy reopening of the route to traffic and stated that hotel owners and staff would treat stranded individuals like guests up till the artery was shut. Asad Shahzad, assistant director of the Kaghan Development Authority, stated that equipment had been transported to the rain-affected areas while travelers and tourists had left the MNJ Road on foot. Houses in several locations were also damaged by torrential rain. It was also stated that the power supply was suspended for several hours.

Tuesday’s rain-related occurrences in the Khyber tribal district resulted in the deaths of three persons, including two children, and significant property damage to numerous homes. Authorities from Rescue 1122 said that during the afternoon’s torrential downpour in the Jamrud tehsil, flash floods caused by the downpour washed away a man and a young boy in the Malagori and Ghundi regions.

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In a separate incident, a young kid was killed and two of his relatives were hurt when the roof of their home fell in the Jamrud tehsil neighborhood of Ali Masjid. When they arrived at a neighboring hospital, the medical staff deemed their health to be stable.