Amarnath Yatra suspended: Inclement weather, bad condition of J-K highway plays spoilsport

The highway was earlier reopened for one-way traffic on Thursday night after its closure due to landslides and shooting stones triggered by heavy rain at several places in Ramban district, officials said.

Jammu: The Amarnath Yatra on Friday has been suspended from Jammu due to due inclement weather and bad condition on Jammu-Srinagar national highway, officials said. No fresh batch was allowed to proceed from here to the base camps of the 3,880-metre-high cave shrine in south Kashmir Himalayas, they said.

The highway was reopened for one-way traffic on Thursday night after its closure due to landslides and shooting stones triggered by heavy rain at several places in Ramban district, officials said. "The yatra has been suspended from Jammu for onward journey to Amarnath in view of the bad condition of highway and inclement weather conditions, a yatra management officer told the media here.

Earlier, Amarnath Yatra was suspended from Jammu due to bad weather on July 10 and resumed on July 11. Authorities may allow yatra from Jammu in late afternoon in case highway become fully operational and conducive for vehicular traffic, officials said.

Jammu-Srinagar highway, which was reopened for vehicular traffic, has been shut due to shooting stones at Cafeteria Morh and Mehar in Ramban, they said. The annual 43-day yatra commenced on June 30 from the twin base camps -- traditional 48-km Nunwan-Pahalgam in south Kashmir's Anantnag and 14-km shorter Baltal in central Kashmir's Ganderbal.

Over 2.30 lakh pilgrims had offered their prayers at the cave shrine, housing the naturally formed ice-shivlingam, the officials said. A total of 1,24,714 pilgrims have left from the Jammu's Bhagwati Nagar base camp for the Valley since June 29, the day the first batch of pilgrims was flagged off by Lt Governor Manoj Sinha.

The yatra is scheduled to end on August 11 on the occasion of Raksha Bandhan. A total of 35 people mostly pilgrims have died during the on-going yatra till now excluding 15 pilgrims, who died in the flashfloods at the cave shrine on July 1. (PTI)