Buried By Landslides, Access To Bengkulu-Sumsel Road Is Completely Cut Off

Heavy equipment belonging to BPBD Rejang Lebong carried out the process of evacuating landslide material that buried the Curup-Lubuklinggau Cross Road, South Sumatra, Monday afternoon (17/3/2025). (ANTARA)

JAKARTA - Access to the Bengkulu-South Sumatra Cross Road, was buried by landslides on Monday, March 17 at around 14.30 WIB.

The landslide to be precise occurred in Taba Padang Village, Binduriang District, Rejang Lebong Regency.

"Currently, access to vehicle traffic that will go to Bengkulu City and vice versa towards Lubuklinggau City, South Sumatra, has been completely cut off. Currently, heavy equipment from BPBD Rejang Lebong is cleaning landslide materials," said Head of Traffic Police Rejang Lebong AKP Wijayanto when contacted, Monday, March 17, confiscated by Antara.

He explained that this landslide occurred on state roads or the Curup-Lubuklinggau Cross Road, where at the time of the incident there was a box car that was trapped between the landslide material which was estimated to reach 50 meters.

The landslide itself, he said, occurred due to heavy rains that hit the Rejang Lebong Regency area for the past few days, but fortunately this incident did not take any lives.

"To motorists, both from Lubuklinggau and from the direction of Bengkulu City, to stop at a safe place or rest area to wait for the landslide material evacuation process to be completed," he said.

Head of the Regional Disaster Management Agency (BPBD) Rejang Lebong Shalahuddin said that his party is currently carrying out the process of evacuating landslide materials in the form of soil and trees that are hoarding the connecting road bodies of the two provinces.

"We have deployed one unit of heavy loader type equipment in the field to deal with landslide materials. In addition, we have also deployed TRC personnel and BPBD volunteers assisted by TNI-Polri personnel," said Shalahuddin.

He estimates that the process of cleaning up the landslide material will run for the next few hours considering the material is quite large and the rain is still falling with moderate to heavy intensity, so it is possible that further landslides could still occur.