Saturday and Sunday seemed fine. Tourists drove up from Manali to Sissu and the Atal Tunnel area for the snow. Then Sunday evening hit and everything changed fast.
Snow kept falling. Roads turned slick. Vehicles could not move and the Manali highway choked up completely. More than 1,000 vehicles were jammed near the tunnel by nightfall. Some people got shelter in Sissu. Most did not. They sat in their cars through the night. People inside the tunnel itself waited nearly 20 hours before they could move.
40 Personnel, One Long Night
Manali DSP K D Sharma was on the ground himself. His team of 40 worked from Sunday evening straight through Monday. “We managed to safely guide around 700 of the over 1,000 stranded vehicles from Atal Tunnel to Manali Sunday night,” he said. “The remaining 300 vehicles were brought back by Monday afternoon. Heavy snowfall kept hampering the operation.”
BRO worked alongside police the whole time, clearing snow and making the road passable bit by bit.
Kullu SDM Ashwani Kumar said even after the main rescue, around 100 vehicles were still stuck in Dhundi near the tunnel.
Roads Shut Down
Kullu police closed the Manali-Atal Tunnel highway at Nehru Kund on Monday. No point letting more tourists drive into the same mess.
Lahaul-Spiti police put out a plain advisory — stay home, do not travel unless you have to, wait for conditions to improve.
Two Feet of Snow, Dozens of Areas Hit
Over two feet of snow piled up around Atal Tunnel alone. Rohtang Pass, Baralacha La, Shinku La and Kunzum Pass all got similar amounts since Sunday.
Solang Valley, Marhi, Gulaba, Kothi, Pangi Valley — snow across the higher reaches of Kullu. Dalhousie got it. Most of Lahaul-Spiti got it — Keylong, Sissu, Koksar, Jispa, Tandi, Udaipur. By Monday evening light snow had started in Manali town itself.
Rain Down Below, Cold Everywhere
Lower Himachal got rain instead of snow but no less disruption. Kullu, Mandi, Shimla, Kangra, Chamba, Una, Hamirpur, Kinnaur, Solan — all reported moderate to heavy rain Monday.
Shimla’s weather office said the state got 249 percent more rain than normal in the 24 hours ending Monday morning. Tabo bottomed out at minus 2.5 degrees. Manali sat at 2.9, Shimla at 4.4, Dharamshala at 8.7.
More Coming
Yellow alert for March 17 and 18 — rain, snow, thunderstorms in parts of the state. Orange alert for March 19 — heavier rain and snowfall expected.
If you are planning to go up, check road conditions first. Authorities are not clearing the way for leisure trips right now.
