SEVERAL students and workers in the Namoli and Batinikama areas in Labasa were stranded yesterday as road conditions continued to deteriorate because of the rainy weather.
Namoli resident Mahendra Prasad said the damaged Namoli bridge had been closed to heavy vehicles during the weekend.
Mr Prasad, who is a taxidriver, said they were using a cane access road which was affected by the continuous rain — limiting vehicle access to the area.
"The bus which used to service the area has stopped their service today (yesterday) because of the bad road conditions and even taxis have stopped using the access road," he said.
"Students and workers were stranded this morning as movement of vehicles along the area has been affected.
"To make matters worse, part of the road to Namoli has been flooded and vehicles cannot move through the flooded areas," said Mr Prasad.
Another resident Subash Chand said they had no choice but to walk through the flooded roads to buy food from a nearby shop.
"To make situations worse, the road condition is bad and taxis have refused coming to our area and we have to walk an extra six kilometres to get to the shop to buy much needed supplies," he said.
Divisional planning officer north Alipate Bolalevu is advising communities to refrain from crossing the strong currents.