By IANS
Agartala : Road links to the northeastern states of Tripura, Mizoram and parts of Assam and Manipur remained cut off from the rest of India for the fourth straight day Wednesday following massive landslides.
A stretch on National Highway No 42 at Sonarpur in Assam has remained blocked since Sunday after heavy rains triggered landsides with huge boulders and trees covering the road. Sonarpur is 150 km away from the Meghalaya capital Shillong.
“It would take some more time to restore the vital link,” said S.K. Singh, commandant of the Border Road Task Force (BRTF).
Communication services in the land-locked region have been badly hit with rail links snapped for the past two months after a bridge collapsed in the Assam sector.
“Over 300 workers have been working round-the-clock at the affected areas at Sonarpur where landslips are an annual phenomenon, especially during the monsoon season,” Singh told IANS over phone.
The BRTF is using dynamite and modern machinery to clear the rubble.
“Thousands of trucks carrying essentials have been stranded on both sides of the landslide-hit area as about 300 metres of the road now remains covered by the debris,” said Samarjit Bhowmik, Tripura food and civil supplies department director.
Vehicular traffic has been stopped since Sunday on National highway 44, which is the lifeline for land-locked Tripura and Mizoram.
The Assam-Agartala national highways connect Tripura, Mizoram, southern Assam (Barak valley region) and western parts of Manipur with the rest of the country.