The Bhutanese Leading the way.
A roadblock at Ossey, 27 kms from Gelephu towards Zhemgang is still not cleared for traffic. The road has been blocked for 21 days. Some seven years before the bottom about 800 meters below the alignment started sliding.
C.B Mongar, Chief Engineer of Sarpang, DoR said that, the slide encroached up yearly expanding on either sides and the slide hit the road in 2016-2017 resulting about 300 meters of road base completely sliding down. “The area looks geologically unstable with weathered and fractured rocks”, he added.
Meanwhile, he said that, it may take another week to clear the blocks if weather permits. “The massive slide and the continuous falling boulders and the poor visibility due to fog is a continuous challenge that hampers the clearance”, he said.
He also said that, there is a potential risk to the working crews and recently, the falling boulders have hit the excavator and injured the operator. In the few instances, he said, “Our working crews had a mere escape from the massive slides when on work and despite all these incidences we are making all the efforts to resume traffic”.
The surveying works, detail design of the alternate route measuring 4.40 km which is proposed from above the slide is already completed. However, he said that, before they start the execution they wanted to ensure that the alignment meets all the geological aspects in order to have a stable and lifelong enduring road.
“The block is very frequent even in winter with little rain”, he added.
