SHANGLA: A crucial bridge washed away by 2010 devastating floods was opened to traffic here on Wednesday, filling the locals with joy.

The 196-metre long and 10-metre broad Kund Bridge over the Indus River connects Batera, Masham, Dara Mada Khel of Kohistan, Allai, Sakargah, Pazang, Der Kadh and Kund with Bisham city.

“Since the bridge collapsed, we have been using chairlifts to cross the Indus, feeling scared because the river is a very dangerous,” Ishaq Khan, a student of 9th grade, said.

He said it was the only crossing point over the mighty river but after it was washed away in the flash floods people were forced to use chairlifts that caused several incidents, injuring many people. He said the locals were happy over opening of the bridge.

The Kund Bridge was washed away in the 2010 flash floods

Faheem, another student, said he had to wait long for the chairlift while going to and coming from school.

We are thankful to the company for completing the bridge at long last,” Saleem Khan of Batera said. He said in the absence of bridge patients were taken to hospital on the chairlift which was really scary.

He said roads in their areas were also in bad condition which needed to be repaired.

Alamgir Jan, in-charge of the firm which built the bridge, told this scribe that they completed the bridge in four years despite facing hardships at different stages.

He said the bridge’s construction was funded by Japan International Cooperation Agency.

KKH BLOCKED: Residents of Shang area blocked the Karakoram Highway and stormed the Bisham grid station on Wednesday for prolonged power suspensions.

The protesters accused the Pesco officials of suspending power supply to Shang union council. They said they would not allow such tactics to succeed as they were regularly paying power bills.

Assistant commissioner Javed Iqbal told this correspondent that protesters blocked the highway for about two hours and also stormed the grid station and switched off power supply to Bisham city.

He said the protesters were mistaken that the Pesco had deliberately stopped power supply to their areas, but in fact the power failure was caused by a fault in the transmission line, which the workers were fixing.

Mr Iqbal said later the administration officials and police held negotiations with the protesters and assured them that loadshedding duration would be same for all the areas being fed from the Bisham grid station.

Published in Dawn, June 1st, 2017