KHYBER - Thousands of travellers on both sides of the Pak-Afghan border Torkham are stuck as the government of Pakistan yesterday shut the border due to the possible spread of coronavirus.
On Saturday last, the Pakistan government amid the possible spread of the COVID-19 in the country had decided to close the Torkham border from March 16 for 14 days.
Thousands of Afghanistan-bound passengers and vice versa at the both sides of the crossing approached the border early in the morning and started waiting in long queues outside the immigration offices to cross the border as early as possible.
The border remained open till midnight on Sunday to assist the passengers to cross the border, however, after that the crossing was closed for all kind of vehicles.
The Afghan citizens asked the authorities to extend the deadline for closing the border and deployed more immigration staff so that they could cross the border to Afghanistan.
Additional Assistant Commissioner, Landi Kotal, Shamsul Islam, said that in the light of the directions of the federal and provincial governments, 11 centres had been set up to quarantine possible 300 coronovirus disease affectees coming from the Afghan side.
The isolation centres had been built in the headquarters hospital, Landi Kotal, the Government Degree College, Landi Kotal, Government High Schools, Government High School Abdul Ghafoor Kalley, Government High School Zentara, Government Girls High Secondary School, Government Middle Schools Shiekhwal and Gagra respectively besides Veterinary Hospital and C&W office.
The official told that all necessary health equipments in addition to the four ambulances had been provided and the health officials had been deployed round the clock to deal with any emergency.
He added that those who had travelled abroad would be admitted in the quarantine centres for 14 days and 40 employees besides the health crew had been trained to serve the possible COVID 19 afectees. The official urged the residents to avoid joining public gatherings and strictly follow the directions publicizes by the government.
It is worth to mention here that so far 31 coronavirus positive cases have been detected across the country.