GILGIT, Nov 5: Personnel of the Frontier Works Organization (FWO) have opened the Karakoram Highway for light vehicular traffic, after removing heavy boulders and mud from the road, police sources said.

Reports reaching here from Chilas said that over 1,500 people from the quake-stricken areas had been evacuated to Gonar Farm and Chilas.

Northern Areas Chief Executive Nisar A. Memon visited the affected areas on Tuesday along with region’s force commander Maj-Gen Nadeem Ahmed and Chief Secretary Fazil Durrani and witnessed the ongoing rescue operations by the army troops.

Mr Nisar announced a rehabilitation grant of Rs3 million, a dispensary, a township for the victims and construction of an alternative route, a bridge at the River Indus through Gauherabad village, to the affected part of the KKH.

He also pledged that all out efforts would be made to rehabilitate the affected people as soon as possible.

Mr Nisar, who also holds the office of information minister, directed the Northern Areas chief secretary to prepare a plan for the rehabilitation of the victims.

In the meanwhile, bodies of the seven quake victims, including four of a family, were burried at Gonar Farm amid thousands of mourners.

The reports said that between the Monday night and Tuesday morning, some jolts of moderate intensity struck Gilgit and its surroundings thrice, but no casualties were reported.