Landslides block BP Highway in Kavrepalanchok as rain continues

Landslides have blocked the BP Highway in Kavrepalanchok in both directions as rain continued on Saturday (October 31), according to the District Police Office, Kavrepalanchok.

The police office said the road is blocked at two points: at Pinthali in Roshi Rural Municipality-9, where a seasonal stream has carried mud and stones down onto the road from above, and at Gimdibesi in Roshi Rural Municipality-8, where a landslide was still coming down.

Rabin Bista, the office's information officer, told the national news agency RSS that the road could not be reopened quickly while the rain continued, Onlinekhabar and Nagarik reported. He asked people to check the highway's condition before setting out.

Other main routes were open. According to Ujyaalo Online, vehicles were running normally on the Prithvi Highway, the Narayangadh–Mugling road and the Kanti Lokmarg, though travellers were asked to take care on them too. The Road Division in Bharatpur, Chitwan, asked drivers and passengers who must use the Mugling–Narayangadh road to check conditions with the security agencies first. Because of the rain, the District Administration Office in Makwanpur stopped traffic on the Kanti Lokmarg from 5 pm to 5 am on Friday and Saturday nights.

Weather forecasters expected the effect of Cyclone Arnab to ease from Saturday evening and the rain to stop gradually, Ujyaalo Online reported.

Rain has disrupted roads elsewhere this week. On Thursday (October 29), citing Nepal Police's details as of 7 am that day, DC Nepal reported that floods had fully blocked the bridge from Soti to Manbu in Gorkha's Arughat Rural Municipality, and that a landslide at Aulise in Surkhet's Barahatal Rural Municipality-7 had left the highway there open to one-way traffic only.