FROZEN!

Parts of South Sikkim were hammered by an intense hailstorm late Thursday afternoon. For a second straight afternoon, the district was pummeled by hail so hard that traffic was brought to a standstill as much because of the hailstones crashing down as for these getting congealed on the roads and making the surface dangerously slick and slippery. Traffic on the Namchi-Damthang axis for instance was held up for close to six hours and vehicles could move only after excavators were pressed into service to bulldoze the ice away from the roads.