Landslide disrupts traffic on Tibet's pivotal highway

Rain-triggered landslide disrupted traffic on a pivotal Tibetan highway Saturday, stranding at least 400 people and more than 100 vehicles, rescuers said. No casualties has been reported. The landslide happened at around 7:30 a.m. Saturday in Bomi County of Nyingchi Prefecture in southwest China's Tibet Autonomous Region, said Chen Jun, an armed police officer who was in charge of rescue operations. Chen said the landslide sent a cascade of 2,800 cubic meters of sand and stone onto the highway linking Tibet with the neighboring Sichuan Province. "The rubble covered about 30 meters of the road. Fortunately, no one was injured." Chen is leading a 20-member team to clean up the debris with an excavator and two loading machines. It was unknown when traffic would resume, as continuous downpour dampened their cleanup efforts and caused three more landslides by midday. The highway linking Tibet with Sichuan was for many years the only access to the plateau region. The Bomi section of the road is particularly risky with landslides, floods and mud-rock flows reported every year.