More than 1,000 tourists left stranded in Yunnan Province since Monday were yesterday able to continue their journeys.

A 120-kilometre road between Lijiang and the Ninglang Yi Autonomous County was blocked for 6 kilometers after heavy rains caused landslides late Sunday night.

A hundred vehicles were turned back, delaying more than 1,000 tourists on their way to Lijiang from Lugu Lake in Ninglang.

No casualties or vehicle damage were reported.

Lijiang is a famous historical town in the area, and the famed Lugu Lake is considered to be holy water by the local Mosuo people.

On Tuesday morning, rescue workers raced to the affected road section.

"We removed soil from the surrounding hills and widened the blocked road, where two-thirds was destroyed by the landslide, into a road five meters wide," said Ma Zhenhong, director of the Ninglang County Tourist Bureau.

Buses were sent by the local government to pick up nearly 500 tourists and take them to Lijiang between 11 am and 6 pm. Other tourists driving their own cars, who were mostly from neighboring Sichuan and Guizhou provinces, were asked to drive back to Ninglang, where they took a four-hour detour to Lijiang.

Some tourists chose to stay in Ninglang until the weather improved so they could continue their sightseeing trip.

By yesterday afternoon, traffic had resumed as efforts to fix the road paid off. But transport officials said the road would not be back to full service until Saturday.

(China Daily July 21, 2005)