High velocity winds followed by a hailstorm on Thrusday caused massive damage to orchards, including apple, almond, walnut, along with standing crops, vegetables, and paddy saplings in various parts of the North Kashmir.
Reports said that the massive hailstorm has created havoc in many areas of North Kashmir which include Rafiabad, Qazigund, Mawer and other areas of Kupwara district.
According to officials of the hoticulture department, the hailstorm largely affected area, like Qaziabad, Mawer, Rafiabad damaging orchards and standing crops.
Reports said the hailstorm started at around 5:0p p.m. in Mawer villages, which include Lawoosa, Yahama, Mawer Bala, Sanzipora, Lach, Audoora, Chontipora, and Drangsoo Shahnagri and adjoining villages.
Expressing their sorrow, farmers said that they had invested a huge amount of money in sowing high-yielding vegetable seeds, but the hailstorm destroyed their entire fields.
Speaking to Rising Kashmir, the apple orchards, said that they crops at an early stage, have suffered massive damage, causing heavy losses in fruit.
Farmers of the affected areas say “adding high-intensity hailstorm, stormy winds and strong rains have destroyed almost the entire apple crop in at least around a dozen villages in these affected areas, with the result that the apple crop is devastated with the apprehension of losses of crores of rupees.
Meanwhile, DDC Mawer Khursheed Ahmad Dar has urged the Lieutenant Governor Monoj Sinha to direct the concerned department to acess the loss in these area and compensate the affected farmers.
He stated from last four years the Farmers of these areas have suffered extensively due to back to back hailstorms.
