Ongoing landslide keeps North Carolina highway closed

BAT CAVE, N.C. (AP) — A landslide that will not stop moving is preventing transportation officials from reopening a North Carolina highway.

The Asheville Citizen-Times reports the N.C. Department of Transportation temporarily opened one lane of N.C. Highway 9 in the past few weeks, only to have to close it because debris slid down the mountainside.

NCDOT spokesman David Uchiyama said workers now hope to have one lane open during daylight hours next week, and both lanes will probably not be cleared until mid-September at the earliest.

Uchiyama said erosion caused by heavy rains destabilized a temporary path workers built into the slope to allow bulldozers and other equipment to get to the slide.