Continuous rainfall since Friday night has triggered severe mud-rock flows which disrupted traffic on a key highway in southwest China's Tibet Autonomous Region, the local government said.

Road work is going on at km 4044 of the No. 318 state highway that links Tibet with neighboring Sichuan Province, said a spokesman of the regional communications department.

He said it's still unclear when traffic will resume.

Mud-rock flows are frequently reported in eastern Tibet in the rainy season with the latest mud-flow occurring only last Tuesday.

The other end of the highway is also in for heavy rainstorms in the coming three days, the meteorological bureau in neighboring Sichuan Province warned on Saturday.

It said the rain will affect nine cities including the provincial capital Chengdu.

(Xinhua News Agency July 15, 2007)