QUETTA: Many areas of northern Balochistan have been cut off from Quetta as vehicular traffic has been suspended on the highways which have been blocked due to heavy rain and snowfall that again started lashing many areas since Thursday evening.

One person was killed when the roof of a house collapsed in the Wadh area of Khuzdar district.

Heavy rain with thunderstorm lashed the border town of Chaman, followed by heavy snowfall on the mountains. “The Khojak pass at Chaman highway, which connects Pakistan with Afghanistan, has been closed due to heavy snowfall, suspending all kinds of vehicular traffic, including cargo trucks carrying transit trade items between the two countries,” a district administration official told Dawn over telephone.

Heavy rains and snowfall also battered Qila Abdullah, Toba Achakzai, Toba Kakari, Qila Saifullah, Muslim Bagh, Kan Mehtarzai, Ziarat and Sanjavi areas.

Seasonal streams are carrying flash floods damaging mud-houses and link roads.

Army and Frontier Corps troops are helping the civil administration remove snow from the roads. Torre­ntial rain and snowfall also started in Kalat and its surrounding areas. Rains were also reported from various towns of Lasbela district.

No further rains were reported in the coastal areas of Makran division but rain and flash flood water are still accumulated on main roads and in the old residential areas of Gwadar, where army, navy and Frontier Corps personnel have shifted hundreds of people to safe places after rescuing them from the affected areas.

Deputy Commissioner of Gwadar retd Capt Jamil Ahmed Baloch has said the provincial government and the PDMA are providing relief to the people on an emergency basis.

According to official figures, 2,478 families have been affected while the road link to 22 villages has been cut off. The recent torrential rains have broken a large number of small dams across Gwadar district, affecting 41 villages and 1,786 households and more than 10,000 people in Kulanch, said the DC.

A PAF C-130 plane carrying relief supplies to flood-hit areas in Gwadar reached Pasni airport.

Meanwhile, Bahram Chah, a small town near the Pak-Afghan border in Chagai district, received moderate snowfall with rainfalls in many parts of Chagai, Nushki, Kharan and Washuk districts.

Abdul Wahid Shahwani in Khuzdar, Behram Baloch in Gwadar and Ali Raza Rind in Chagai also contributed to this report

Published in Dawn, January 7th, 2022