Flowing again - more than 200 tons of TNT blasts new river course for Bureya after giant landslide

Video shows the water flowing again on the Bureya River. 

A new channel has water gushing through at 250 cubic metres per second. 

Deputy defence minister Dmitry Bulgakov personally monitored completion of the first phase of an operation ordered by President Vladimir Putin to unblock the river in Khabarovsk region.

The frozen river was blocked by a major rock collapse in December when up to 30 million  tons of debris fell from the mountainside. 

There were claims at the time that the event was triggered by a meteorite strike but scientists contended a large landslide was to blame. 

The new 200 metre long channel is 35 metres wide and has a depth of 20 metres. 

Some 520 military personnel were involved and 43 units of equipment. An 80 km roadway was built to reach the site. 

More than 200 tons of TNT was used to blast the site, and 12 km of Bickford fuse was required. 

The whole operation over several weeks was in temperatures in the minus 30s with strong icy winds. 

'We have fulfilled the instructions of the President of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin,’ said Bulgakov.

A second channel will be blasted this month through the mound of collapsed rock, which is a maximum 165 metres high. 

The blockage threatened to flood  villages upstream, and deprived a hydropower reservoir downstream of vital water. 

The Baikal Amur Mainline rail link was also threatened with flooding.

After the giant rock fall, local district head Alexey Maslov claimed a meteorite strike triggered the collapse. 

It is known rocks in the area were “hot” in the aftermath of the December event.