The national highway 44 linking South Assam, Mizoram and Tripura was reopened on Saturday, for vehicles after being shut down for 15 days following massive landslides on a 400-metre stretch of the highway near Sonapur on Assam's border with Meghalaya. The commandant of the 42 border road task force, C P Gupta, said that more than 500 vehicles, including several goods laden trucks, which were stranded for the past 11 days on the both sides of the highway at the landslide-ravaged point had been given passages.
Over 200 labourers of the BRTF, equipped with bulldozers and excavators, were employed round the clock to clear the 30-ft high rubble, which crashed from the adjoining hills during heavy rains.
Over 200 labourers of the BRTF, equipped with bulldozers and excavators, were employed round the clock to clear the 30-ft high rubble, which crashed from the adjoining hills during heavy rains. The BRTF had opened a temporary sub-way by the side of the landslide-ravaged national highway to allow onward journey of several stranded vehicles on June 14.
A massive landslide on June 4 at Sonapur in Meghalaya had snapped road links between Tripura, Mizoram, South Assam and parts of Manipur with the rest of the country.
Eight people were killed when a bus, a rice-laden truck and oil tanker fell into river Lukha following the landslide.
Bureau Report