Traffic through Hualien has been interrupted by more than one landslide in the months since the large earthquake in April.
Around 6 a.m. on Thursday morning, a large boulder fell in front of the Hualien Heren Tunnel entrance, decimating a section of the railway tracks and leaving behind a large crater.
The Taiwan Railway Corporation (TRC) immediately dispatched a group of workers to assess the situation. As they approached the scene, they saw piles of other fallen rocks nearby, indicating the rockslide was quite a bit bigger than they thought.
TRC East District Office Director Chiang Teng-fan (姜登凡) estimates the boulder weighs about 150 tons, and said they plan to use excavators to break it up into smaller pieces for removal.
The same location saw a landslide just a few days prior, for which repairs were completed on Wednesday. Now the east main railway line is impassable once again, leaving travelers high and dry.
Apart from the railways, rockslides have also affected the Central Cross-lsland Highway, crashing down with the sound of cannonballs and stirring up thick clouds of sediment. Although Suhua Highway has reopened to traffic since being obstructed by a landslide a few days ago, leftover debris has changed the scenery from green to gray.
Between earthquakes and heavy rains, travelers find themselves at the mercy of Mother Nature.
Hanna Bilinski for RTI News
