MURREE, Jan 18: Heavy snowfall disrupted life on a massive scale in Murree and its surrounding areas on Sunday.

But the disruption had as much to do with the one-and-half-foot of snow that fell as with the lack of civic sense and bad traffic management witnessed on the occasion.

Hundreds of cars and buses packed with people were stuck up for hours on the slippery hill road as they jostled to enter or leave the popular resort town.

It turned out that three heavy buses, otherwise banned from operating in the area during snowfall, had blocked traffic at Sunny Bank and Chittamore.

Traffic heading for Murree was held up for two hours at Satra Meel (17th mile point) to ease the situation at the two blocked points but that did not help.

More than 200 traffic wardens were called to clear the mess. They found the task hard but eventually managed to bring some order among the unruly motorists competing to snatch the smallest of opening after about five hours.

All this time the stranded passengers in the piled up cars and buses shivered in the chilly weather and the kids with them howled for food and fun.

People of Murree and the Galyaat caught in the jam fumed as they waited for the traffic to move to take them home or to other cities.

DSP Traffic Fida Shah was away in Rawalpindi and not available for comments.

But Town Nazim Sardar Saleem Khan, who personally supervised the operation to clear the traffic jam, claimed that a large number of heavy buses gained entry into Murree with the connivance of traffic police.

He told Dawn that the newly constructed Murree Expressway also witnessed a traffic jam. Police should have stopped Murree-bound tourists to use the Expressway as it has not been formally opened to traffic yet, he said.

Murree is a popular destination for the people of Rawalpindi and Islamabad for a family outing on weekends. This Sunday the rush for the hill resort was much greater as the Met Office had forecast snowfall on the day. The “Queen of Hills” receives snow only twice or thrice in a year.

It was only after the traffic started moving smoothly that the highway staff could move in with machines to clear the snow from the roads.

But it proved a slow-pace operation as new machines for which the chief minister of Punjab had sanctioned Rs60 million eight months ago have not been purchased yet.

When SDO Chaudhry Ghulam Rasool of the highway department was contacted he would only say that all available machines were on the job which could not be taken up quickly because of the massive traffic jams.