The oil tanker that overturned on NH31A, 4km from Teesta bridge, on Monday night. Picture by Chinlop Fudong Lepcha

Kalimpong, June 24: Traffic block on the NH31A was aggravated after an oil tanker overturned last night. The accident took place 200 metres from the site of the latest landslide and 4km from the Teesta bridge.

By 11am, vehicles piled up on the two-and-a-half kilometre stretch of the road which has double lanes. Officials of the Border Roads Organisation (BRO), which maintains the highway connecting Sikkim with Siliguri, said they could restore one-way traffic by 1pm.

However, it will take a while before two-way traffic is restored given the difficult terrain there. The officials said cutting the hillside was fraught with danger and time consuming.

The place where the last landslide took place is not very far from 27 Mile, above the NHPC’s Teesta Low Dam Project Stage III site, where another one had occurred. As in yesterday’s jam at Hatisuray near the Coronation Bridge, the pile-up today was mainly because of errant drivers who tried to jump the queue to reach the destination fast.

A BRO officer said drivers did not seem to realise that taking the vehicles through gaps would only lead to more chaos. “At times like this, it is important to show patience and maintain discipline.”

According to sources, the BRO officials approached the Darjeeling district magistrate Rajesh Pandey today and requested him to ensure the deployment of more police personnel to control the traffic on the highway.

“Please understand, it is not our job to ease the traffic problem. That is the responsibility of the police. But at most times, during the trouble like the ones we witnessed yesterday and today, only a handful of policemen were deployed to regulate vehicular movement,” an officer said.

The BRO restored two-way traffic at Hatisuray after clearing the highway of stones and slush. “We also blasted the bolder that had landed on the road and cleared the road to facilitate two-way movement of vehicles,” the officer added.