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fficials are urging those passing along Gitgit road in Bali's northern coastal regency of Buleleng to be wary of impending landslides during the rainy season since the occurrence of several landslides along the main road.

Rains and strong winds on late Thursday and early Friday caused another landslide on kilometers 15 and 20 of the road. No casualties have been reported but the landslides caused major traffic jams, lasting up to five hours, in both directions. Head of the Buleleng Public Works Agency, Nyoman Gde Suryawan, said that with is hilly terrain, the regency of Buleleng is prone to landslides, especially along the Gitgit road, the main road linking the Bali's two major cities of Denpasar and Singaraja.

"All this rainy season, we and the public should take precautions in anticipating landslides on this road," Suryawan said.

This is the third landslides to occured in Gitgit this year. The first occurred in January on kilometer 14, damaging several buildings and obstructing traffic.

Wayan Gampil, 55, the owner of the property on which the landslide occurred Friday, was not immediately aware of the incident. His property sat slanted at 80 degrees, 25 meters above the road, until the collapse.

"We got to bed at about 10 p.m. and my family got a little rowdy fighting over sleeping space because the rain trickles into the house through our roof so we didn't hear our land falling off," he said.

He said a neighbor alerted him to the problem.

Gampil said he was "uncomfortable" with the sharp angle of his property, but that he had no choice but to stay because the land was inherited from his ancestors.

He further believed that the land would not have fallen so easily, saying that rock cliffs supported it.

"This is our land and we knew we were building a home on top of rock cliffs. We were a little worried but we did not have any choice," he said.

Suryawan supported Gampil's claim the rock cliffs seemed to have been doing well in supporting the land, but blamed freak natural disasters for the landslides.

"It has been proven now. The land went down anyway, which means that there is no telling what nature can do," Suryawan said.

Meanwhile, traffic along Gitgit began returning to normal as of 5 a.m. Saturday, after officials removed the soil using loader trucks on Friday.

Meanwhile, buildings in Tejakula village, Buleleng, were still buried by a landslide which struck early last week. Loader trucks used in the cleaning up of the village had to be diverted to clear the Gitgit road.

Landslides in Tejakula village buried 15 homes and several sacred spots, inundating several other houses with mud.