China-Pakistan Friendship Highway has been reopened to all types of traffic after a brief closure due to extreme weather conditions, the military said on Sunday afternoon.
The 1300-kilometer highway, also known as the Karakoram Highway, had been closed on Friday due to floods and landslides triggered by heavy monsoon rains.
The highway had been blocked at 26 points on the route from Tata Pani to Upper Kohistan. People were stuck on the road for hours.
The Military’s media wing, the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR), said that the Frontier Works Organization (FWO) teams worked for 24 hours to clear the highway despite bad weather conditions and difficult terrain.
The highway which connects Punjab, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Gilgit-Baltistan with China’s Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region is a popular tourist attraction and is one of the highest paved roads in the world.
Speaking about the brief closure of the highway, National Disaster Management Authority Chairperson General Akhter Nawaz Satti said Gilgit-Baltistan received 70% more rain this year.
“Pakistan is currently witnessing the third spell of the monsoon rains, which is likely to last till August 3,” he said, adding that NDMA has rescued over 25 families so far. The rain hasswept away houses and bridges in multiple areas of the region, he added.
