Highway: Travellers are cautioned to seek prior information before travelling as landslides have occurred along several highways and dzongkhag roads.

Meteorological forecast show heavy rainfall on September 5 and 6.

The Hydro Met division depends on forecast from the Indian Meteorological agency, which showed high possibility of rain this weekend.

Similar predictions were made for August 30, when the Samdrupjongkhar River bursts its dyke and damaged a truck, bridge and other properties.

Hydro Met division data show 215.8mm of rain on that day at the Dewathang weather station. The next highest rainfall was recorded in Samtse with 115.8mm of rain.

“However, these predictions could change depending on the movement of the clouds,” an official said.

BBC weather forecast also show rain and high humidity until September 11, next week.

Monsoon arrived late this year and the region has developed a lot of low pressure at the moment, which means attracting more moisture-laden clouds from the Bay of Bengal.

As the monsoon downpour continues, roads officials said their workers are working day and night to keep the roads open.

Roads department’s chief engineer, Tshering Wangdi, said they were prioritising national highways over dzongkhag and gewog centre roads.

“We know there are dzongkhag and gewog roads blocked by recent landslides but we’re concentrating on keeping the highways open,” he said. He said roadblocks have occurred on all highways including the east-west national highway.

He said they post updates on their Facebook page to keep the public informed. The RoadSafety mobile application is however still waiting for live data from the department of roads and concerned agencies to be operational.

Works and human settlement minister, Dorji Choden wrote on the page asking for the public to be more careful.

“Find out the condition of the roads from DoR or RSTA before you start your journey,” the minister said.

She said the long monsoon has been a disaster for road builders and engineers.

The roads chief engineer said that restoring rain-damaged structures had cost them invaluable time and progress on the annual targets.

“Of course, we are more concentrated to restore the damages, halting other activities,” he said.

However, the Gomphu-Pangbang highway still remains blocked with bridges washed away.

“It’d take at least a week for us to open the road to traffic,” chief engineer Tshering Wangdi said.

Tshering Palden