Phuentsholing, April 02, 2009: The Thimphu-Phuentsholing highway remained closed for third consecutive day due to the landslide cause by heavy rain on Tuesday night.
The landslide had swept away the Takti Bridge, de-linking Thimphu with Phuentsholing. Works for restoration of the highway is underway and officials involved in reconstruction have not given any timeline for completion of the work.
The landslide had killed few people including an assistant driver of a truck, local officer of the DANTAK stationed at the bridge. The dead bodies have not been recovered.
According to government records, this highway experienced over 230 accidents in 2008 alone.
This is again bad news for everybody, bussinessman, travellers etc. Last year i missed my trip to australia becos of that takti slide. Traffic was open from morning after sometime, a DCM truck was washed away killing four. Again traffic was closed for few days. I tried to come via gelephu but due to Assam strike, i missed my flight……so, authorities has to come up with other alternatives sonner the better. I have seen hundreds of standard vehicles on that road. It needs immediate attention of MOIC. I have seen many people miising deadlines for tenders, a patient about to die. GREEF which is known for handling such landslide prone areas are just watching things happen. The main reason behind the slide is the double laning of High way. When GREEF people do the first cutting they do not maintain the proper slope to cut the road. They dig out the base of the wall at acute angle so that the hills falls itself by self weight minimising the resourses and the cost. In doing so, those fraigle slope comes down from the top most weak point which would be about 30- 40 metres of length, washing everything out its way. Easy job for GREEF, clean the debris and they will get carriage width more than they want(3.5×2) metres. Thats the logic behind it.
Again some analyists bring out the political motive behind such delay and extending of completion time, hope its not so…