Tag: himachal weather

Manali on Tuesday woke up to the crystal valley, with all taps, brooks, sewers, roads, leaves, trees and even the toilet plushing systems completely frozen and icicles handing everywhere. At minus 7 degrees Celsius, Manali had the coldest night of this year. Everything that was exposed to the air was turned ice. Even the internal and underground water lines have given up. Kitchen taps, geysers and showers had no water. Similar was the condition of toilet plush that was frozen and running out of water. Leaves and flowers on seasonal plants turned rock hard. It was the frozen frosty highway that triggered main problems till afternoon.  “It was looking like vehicles are playing ice skating on road and their players (drivers) have no control over their machine,” owner of a hotel near highway, Ramesh Thakur said, who was enjoying the moment. “Vehicles were moving hardly with speed of 2 kmph and jammed the highway. The frustrating driving experience continued until ice on road was melted partially by sun at around 2pm,” he said. Several people and hoteliers complained that their water pipes were cracked with cold. A local resident Shally Thakur said, “The day is over but taps are still frozen. We could not bath and had to bring water from another source. The day was extremely cold.” As the whole valley was converted into an ice-skating rink, people were finding difficulty walking everywhere. Unable to make balance, people collapsed hundreds of times and many sustained injuries. It was the result of clear sky during night after five days of snowfall that temperature fell intensely. Surprisingly, the maximum temperature during last 24 hours was only 2.6 degrees Celsius. On Tuesday evening, some clouds were hovering over the sky and so the slight increase in temperature is likely in next 24