Traffic resumes near collapsed road in Tibet

Traffic on a section of a collapsed road in southwest China's Tibet autonomous region resumed Friday morning, local traffic police said. After over 45 hours of rescue efforts, traffic on the 100-meter-long section of a major road in Bomi County, which is part of a key road linking Tibet with neighboring Sichuan province, resumed around 11:30 Friday morning, said Liu Hongchun, an official with the local traffic police bureau. As of 1:30 p.m. Friday, the 300 trapped cars had passed the collapsed road section. Vehicles, not including heavy trucks, can pass the section on the newly repaired shortcut, Liu said. The section of road in the mountainous region collapsed on Wednesday afternoon, following days of rain. Rescuers rushed to dig anther road through the mountains to evacuate cars and people as it would have taken too long to repair the collapsed road. The state road linking Tibet with Sichuan was the only way to access the plateau region for many years. The Bomi section of the road is particularly risky, with landslides, floods and mud-rock flows reported every year. On Saturday, a rain-triggered landslide disrupted traffic on another section of the road in Bomi, halting traffic for nine hours before rescuers cleared the road.