World's highest post office in Himachal hit by coronavirus

This picture has been used for representational purpose

World's highest post office Hikkam located in Himachal Pradesh's Spiti Valley at the height of 15,000 feet above sea level and currently marooned in a thick blanket of snow has been hit by the coronavirus, officials said on Tuesday.

A team of doctors for the first time reached the village where the night temperature currently hovers around 20 degrees Celsius below freezing and collected samples on Monday. Hikkam has a population of 200. Also its nearby villages Komik and Langche have been hit by the pandemic. They support a population of 87 and 136, respectively.

"A total of 80 swab samples were collected in three villages and out of them four tested positive," a health official told IANS over phone from Kaza, the headquarters of Spiti and some 320 km from the state capital Shimla. Kaza was the first in the state to sanitise the entire block to prevent the spread of the pandemic.

The picturesque Spiti Valley, a cold desert dotted by tiny hamlet spread over the Himalayan peaks, adjoining Tibet, takes you to a land of Buddhism and virgin nature. As per the state health bulletin, a total of 4,646 coronavirus samples were taken in the valley till date and out of them 473 tested positive. The active cases are 25. Two deaths have been reported.

Authorities blame the locals, who are largely the Buddhist farmers growing barley, potatoes, wheat and black peas, for the virus spread as they are reluctant to go to hospitals owing to a belief they will get treated automatically with the blessing of a local deity. "Special teams of the health and the police have been visiting village to village to educate the locals about how to contain the virus and also collecting the samples," Additional District Magistrate of Kaza, Gyan Sagar Negi, told IANS. The freezing temperatures and continuous snowfall have been forcing the locals to stay indoors most of the time, he added.

Keep scrolling to read more news

Catch up on all the latest Crime, National, International and Hatke news here. Also download the new mid-day Android and iOS apps to get latest updates.

Mid-Day is now on Telegram. Click here to join our channel (@middayinfomedialtd) and stay updated with the latest news

This story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed, agencies. Mid-day accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability, trustworthiness, reliability and data of the text. Mid-day management/mid-day.com reserves the sole right to alter, delete or remove (without notice) the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever