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Changing weather hits Himalayan skating rink SHIMLA, India (AFP) Jan 12, 2005 India's oldest natural outdoor skating rink is turning into a puddle thanks to warmer winters so authorities are set to break a 84-year-old tradition and install refrigeration to keep the ice in place. The ice-skating rink in Shimla in the state of Himachal Pradesh, once the summer home of the British Raj, operates between December and February. Clear, cold weather is essential for freezing the ice and ensuring that it is hard enough for the skates to run. But a combination of global warming and deforestation in the mountains surrounding Shimla has made it difficult to open the rink daily because of slushy ice, officials at the Shimla Ice Skating Club say. "In the last couple of years, the weather has been terrible. This year we've had only 21 skating sessions" since it opened in December, said Anil Bharadwaj, general secretary of the club. "Until four decades ago, 120 to 150 sessions of skating would take place. But now, only 100 skating sessions are held under favourable weather conditions," he added. As well, this year frequent spells of sleet and rain have halted ice formation at the rink. "Once it snows, the weather becomes more settled and suitable for skating, but even the snow has eluded Shimla so far," Bharadwaj told AFP. The club, built in 1920 by an Englishman named Blessington, was set against a grove of tall pine trees to keep it shaded from the sun and was at first open only to colonialists, according to a sketch of the skating history of India posted on the Internet. All rights reserved. copyright 2018 Agence France-Presse. Sections of the information displayed on this page (dispatches, photographs, logos) are protected by intellectual property rights owned by Agence France-Presse. As a consequence, you may not copy, reproduce, modify, transmit, publish, display or in any way commercially exploit any of the content of this section without the prior written consent of Agence France-Presse.
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