CHITRAL, March 5: The recent spate of heavy snowfall across Chitral valley has paralysed life in the district, bringing miseries to its inhabitants.

The snowfall has disconnected power supply to Chitral from national grid while vehicular traffic to the distant valleys remains suspended, causing shortage of daily use items.

Residents of the areas said that hundreds of Peshawar-bound passengers were stranded and schools and colleges could not be opened due to heavy snowfall. They complained that Chitral city was without electricity for the last eight days. The power outage multiplied miseries of people, they added. Former district nazim Maghfirat Shah said that Pesco failed to restore power supply to the city. “The area has been thrown back in 18th century when the people used to live without electricity,” he said.

He said that the people in the distant valleys of Madak Lusht, Terich, Rech, Laspur, Yarkhoon, Baroghil and Lotkoh were facing shortage of daily use commodities. He said that some of the valleys received more than five feet snow where mobilisation was limited.

Attendance in city colleges remained nominal as students of remote areas could not turned up due to blockade of roads. The Government Degree College Langlands was closed for another week. All the educational institutions were scheduled to re-open on March 1 after winter vacations but snowfall disrupted their schedule.

The PIA flights to Chitral from Islamabad and Peshawar were cancelled for the 18th consecutive day due to inclement weather. — Correspondent