Mudslides that stranded more than 100 people, forcing some to take shelter in a tunnel overnight, have shut down part of Interstate 70 in Western Colorado for the weekend.
The highway through Glenwood Canyon is expected to remain closed for several days. The Colorado Department of Transportation crews are using heavy construction equipment to clear the roadway and remove stranded vehicles, but there is heavy rain and flash flood warnings in the weekend forecast, CBS-4 Denver reported.
No one was hurt when 108 people got stuck in about 30 vehicles Thursday night after debris washed over the interstate around 9 p.m. Some of the stranded sheltered in the tunnel in the canyon for about nine hours, after a deluge in an area, burned by a wildfire last summer, swamped 10 different sections of the roadway with mud and water.
Crews cut a path through the mud to reach them at about 6:30 a.m. Friday, The Associated Press reported.
The tunnel serves as a 24-hour operations center for the Colorado Department of Transportation, and has lighting and telephones.
Mudslides have overtaken I-70 in Glenwood Canyon several times this summer, leading CDOT to close the highway about 10 times, Colorado Public Radio reported. The interstate had been preemptively closed earlier in the day but was reopened after a flash flood warning was lifted, and then got swamped after a sudden storm developed over the canyon.