A woman walks along a narrow-gauge railroad track during heavy snowfall in the northern hill town of Shimla yesterday. Heavy snow in Himachal Pradesh cut off several areas in the upper Shimla and Kinnaur region, disrupting road and rail links in the state.

IANS/Shimla


Himachal Pradesh’s popular tourist destinations Shimla and Manali yesterday received more snow.
This was the season’s significant snowfall that froze the “Queen of Hills”, as Shimla was fondly called by the British.
The snowfall has brought down the minimum temperature to minus 0.3 degree Celsius, the season’s lowest.
According to the weather office here, certain areas of Shimla like the Mall Road, the Ridge, the US Club and Jakhu hills got more than a foot of snow.
Other picturesque tourist resorts Chail and Kasauli in Solan district and Dalhousie in Chamba district have been experiencing snow.
“High-altitude areas of Lahaul and Spiti, Chamba, Mandi, Kullu, Kinnaur, Sirmaur and Shimla districts have been experiencing moderate to heavy snow for the past two days,” a weather official said.
Kalpa in Kinnaur district, which saw 37.4cm snow, recorded a low of minus 4.8 degrees, while it was minus 1.2 degrees in Manali with a snow of more than 2ft and minus 6.8 degrees in Keylong in Lahaul-Spiti district.
Salooni in Chamba district saw 18cm of snow.
Traffic beyond Dhalli, 10km from here, remained suspended yesterday since a large stretch of the Hindustan-Tibet Road was under a thick blanket of snow.
The entire Kinnaur district and towns in Shimla district such as Narkanda, Jubbal, Kotkhai, Kumarsain, Kharapathar, Rohru and Chopal are cut off due to heavy snow, a government official said.
Connectivity on the Kullu-Manali national highway remained snapped near Patlikuhl, some 20km before Manali.
Meanwhile, Uttar Pradesh continued to shiver in the winter chill due to heavy rains across the state.
Heavy snowfall in parts of Uttarakhand forced the closure of the highways leading to Gangotri and Badrinath, an official said.