A landslide has blocked the Up-Country railway line between Bandarawela and Heel Oya, cutting rail services to Badulla, the Daily Mirror reported on Wednesday morning.
A large mound of earth and rock collapsed onto the track near milepost 162/54 in the early hours, an official at Nanu Oya Railway Station told the Daily Mirror. The official estimated it would take about six hours to clear the debris.
Services affected
The Podi Menike, running from Nanu Oya to Badulla, was terminated at Bandarawela Railway Station. All trains scheduled to run from Badulla to Nanu Oya have been suspended until the line is cleared and normal operations restored.
Heel Oya lies between Bandarawela and Badulla on the final stretch of the line, which is why Bandarawela became the turnaround point: trains can still reach it from the Nanu Oya side, but cannot continue beyond.
Timing
The Daily Mirror’s filing, published at 9.44 a.m. Colombo time on Wednesday, describes the landslide as having happened “early yesterday (4)”. The parenthetical date is Wednesday itself, the day the report was published, so the two halves of that sentence do not agree. This desk reads the fall as having occurred in the early hours of Wednesday 4 November, consistent with the report’s own account of a six-hour clearance still in prospect, but the discrepancy is in the source and is noted here rather than resolved.
Warnings were already in force
The National Building Research Organisation issued landslide warnings on Tuesday covering Badulla, Kandy and Ratnapura districts, with the alert running through Wednesday. The blocked section lies inside the warned area.
The stretch also has recent history. Passenger services between Nanu Oya and Badulla resumed only in June after a long suspension caused by Cyclone Ditwah damage, and further up-country repairs kept other sections closed into October.
Single-source
The Daily Mirror was the only verified newsroom carrying the blockage when this report was prepared. Hiru News had not filed it, Ada Derana remains unreachable from this desk, and searches of NewsFirst, the Island and Daily FT returned only earlier up-country landslide disruptions — a story that recurs on this line often enough that the headline alone does not identify the event. The details that fix this one are the Bandarawela–Heel Oya section and milepost 162/54.
Not reported
The filing does not say whether anyone was injured, whether any train was struck or derailed, or whether road access in the area is affected. It does not name the Railway Department officials in charge of the clearance, give a target time for reopening, or say what alternative transport is being arranged for passengers stranded at Badulla and Bandarawela.
