Traffic on the Hatton–Gampola main road has been restricted to a single lane after a landslide in the Garandi Ella area of Kotmale, Hiru News reported.
Police said the slip followed heavy rain over Kotmale on Friday afternoon, 9 October. Mud and several rocks came down onto the main road from the hillside above at about 6.30pm.
More rock falls possible
The Kotmale Officer-in-Charge said there is a risk that several more large rocks above the site could come down onto the road. Police have asked drivers to take care when passing the location.
The photograph released with the report shows a fresh earth scar running down the hillside, debris spread across roughly half the carriageway and a red warning flag set on the road at the edge of the slip — consistent with the account of a partial blockage rather than a closure.
Context
The Hatton–Gampola road is one of the main links across the central hills, carrying traffic between the Nuwara Eliya district plantation areas and Kandy district. A single-lane restriction on it affects estate transport and school and commuter traffic as well as through journeys.
Hill-country roads in this area are repeatedly cut by rain-triggered slips, and the stretch through Kotmale has been closed by bad weather before. Schools across the Nuwara Eliya and Hatton areas were shut during heavy weather last month.
A note on the place name: Hiru renders it both “Garandi Ella” and “Garadi Ella”, and the location appears elsewhere as Gerandi Ella. These are transliteration variants of the same place.
Not reported
The filing does not say whether anyone was injured, whether any property was damaged, or how long the restriction is expected to last. It gives no indication that the National Building Research Organisation has inspected the site or issued a landslide warning for the area, and does not say whether clearing work has begun or who is carrying it out.
It does not name the Officer-in-Charge, give a rainfall figure for Kotmale, or say whether any other roads in the division are affected.
No other verified newsroom had filed on this slip at the time of writing. This desk searched the Daily Mirror, NewsFirst, Ada Derana, Daily News, the Island and Colombo Gazette; the searches returned only earlier, unrelated landslides on hill-country roads. The account rests on Hiru News alone.
Source: Hiru News.
