Chipping through 100 t0 120 feet (30 – 36 meters) of snow.
Members of the General Reserve Engineering Force (GREF), a wing of the Border Roads Organisation, are slowly cutting their way through 100 to 120 feet of snow, working to reopen traffic through the snow-marooned Rohtang Pass located at 3,978 metres in the Pir Panjal mountain range.
According to Col. Yogesh Nair, commander of the 38 Task Force of GREF , there was record snowfall in the region this season and the snow-clearing operation is a herculean task.
“The road stretch near Rohtang Pass is under 100 to 120 feet of snow. Unusually high. It normally experiences 70 to 80 feet of snow. We will try to reopen the Manali-Keylong highway by April-end,” he said.
Every year, after winter, GREF opens the Manali-Rohtang-Keylong highway by deploying more than 250 personnel and labourers.
With the help of global positioning system, engineers locate the road beneath the hill of the snow. After a bulldozer clears off the major snow, labourers manually clear the remaining snow with shovels.
Residents of two dozen small and scattered villages with a population of over 20,000 in the Lahaul valley are eagerly awaiting restoration of the road traffic.
“Since late last December, we have been cut off from the rest of the world. We are awaiting reopening of roads,” Mohan Bodh, a resident of Chokhang village in Lahaul, told IANS.
Meanwhile, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry prattles on about global warming.
Get a clue, John.
http://www.daijiworld.com/news/news_disp.asp?n_id=166145
Thanks to Andrew Stranglen for this link