Title - Rail traffic restored on Ambala-Hardwar track

Yamunanagar ; The continuous receding of flood waters from the district brought the much needed relief to the affected villages. The Yamuna river, which wrecked havoc in the district after bringing in more than 8 lakh cusecs of water from the hills of Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand, was today carrying around 77,000 cusecs of water.The repair work undertaken by the railways on a war footing today brought the Ambala-Hardwar track back in operation at 3.30pm. Railway officials said the movement of trains on the track had been restored which had remained suspended since Sunday. The National Highway-73 was also opened for the traffic, but hardly any vehicle passed through it as the flood had completely washed away the road which was already in a bad shape even before the flood.Long queues of trucks and buses could be seem parked on the road as a few trucks overturned on the road due to deep ditches. The rainwater, which had accumulated in various lanes of Yamunanagar and Jagadhri towns, had also started receding. A number of mud houses in the affected villages were also washed away.Deputy Commissioner K M Pandurang said the administration would undertake a detailed survey to assess the losses suffered by residents so that they could be adequately compensated by the state government. He said district officials were still monitoring the weather in the upper reaches of the hills.The number of villages, which were cut off from the district after a bridge on the river at Burdiya village was washed away, still had no access to other parts of the district. The officials maintained that more than 150 villages had been directly or indirectly affected by these floods and efforts were afoot to restore normalcy in the flood-hit areas.