Key highways and roads connecting some of Afghanistan’s provinces to the capital Kabul, including the country’s national Ring Road connecting it to the Asian Highway 1, have been closed to traffic as a result of the heavy snowfall since last night.
The Taliban’s Ministry of Public Works announced today morning that the Salang Pass and highway in northern Afghanistan, part of the country’s Ring Road, has been closed to traffic after heavy snowfall and storms, urging people not to travel by the road until further notice.
“We are trying to re-open the highway once the weather conditions become manageable,” the Ministry said in a statement.
Local authorities of the Taliban in the central provinces of Bamyan, Ghor, and Daikundi and as well as in the western Badghis province confirmed that the heavy snowfalls closed highways connecting these provinces to the Ring Road. Plus, they confirmed, the provincial capitals are cut off from the districts as a result of the snowfall that started last night.
Abdul Khaliq Haqmal, head of the Taliban’s department of public works in Bamyan, told Kabul Now that they have already started snow-sweeping on several roads.
Releasing a newsletter, the spokesperson for the Taliban governor in Ghor province, Abdul Wahid Hammas asked people not to travel on the Ghor-Kabul highway until Friday, January 13.
Sher Ali Hussaini, an official of the Taliban department of public works in Daikundi, said that all its 10 districts have been witnessing snowfall since last night, adding that the provincial center is cut off from the highway connecting the province to Bamyan and Kabul and as well as from its districts.
Afghanistan’s northern, northeastern, and central provinces are usually hit by heavy snowfalls during the winter season which sometimes leads to the closure of key roads connecting these provinces to the capital Kabul and to its Ring Road.
