Landslides Cut Off Fort Portal-Bundibugyo Road

A section of the road that was washed away by the landslides

Landslides have cut off the Fort Portal-Bundibugyo road in western Uganda leaving several passengers stranded. The landslides occured on Tuesday evening following a heavy down pour. 

A section of the road that was washed away by the landslides
A section of the road that was washed away by the landslides

Big rocks rolled down from the hills blocking and damaging a section of the newly constructed road.  This has paralyzed transport between Fort-Portal to Bundibugyo and Ntoroko districts.

The newly constructed road was cut off at Kasisi, six kilometers to Karugutu town. The guard rails on the side of the road were also washed away. However, there are no reports of casualties.

David Kule, a resident of Kasisi village says says residents unsuccessfully tried to remove the rocks to enable the smooth flow of traffic. Kule says that they tried to contact Chongqing International Construction Corporation (CICO) workers to remove the rocks from the road in vain.

CICO, a Chinese company was contracted by government to construct the 103 kilometer road from Fort Portal-Lamia town, at the border post with the Democratic Republic of Congo, (DRC). Steven Aguma, a businessman in Bundibugyo town, who was travelling to Bundibugyo from Fort Portal, says that he was forced to spend the night on the road with his merchandize because it is blocked.

At the time of filing this report, workers from CICO were manually removing the heavy rocks as several passengers waited for the road to be reopened.

The workers were also waiting for some equipment from Bundibugyo town. George Kabagambe, an engineer with CICO told local media that the road could re-open after eight hours because of the heavy work load.

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