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Himalayan earthquake

KATHMANDU, Nepal >> Sleeping in the streets and shell-shocked, Nepalese cremated the dead and dug through rubble for the missing Sunday, a day after a massive Himalayan earthquake killed more than 2,500 people. Aftershocks tormented them, making buildings sway and sending panicked Kathmandu residents running into the streets.

The cawing of crows mixed with terrified screams as the worst of the aftershocks — magnitude 6.7 — pummeled the capital city. It came as planeloads of supplies, doctors and relief workers from neighboring countries began arriving in this poor Himalayan nation. No deaths or injuries were reported from the early Sunday afternoon quake, but it took an emotional toll.

not zippy

State Department of Transportation officials hope that Wednesday morning's commute will go smoothly — with the H-1 ZipperLane still open for town-bound traffic — but there's no guarantee that pau hana drivers won't see a repeat of Tuesday's carmageddon that caused widespread gridlock.

The fix depends on whether a mainland technician expected to arrive at 11 a.m. Wednesday will be able to get either of the state's two ZipMobiles running again to return the ZipperLane to its normal operation in time for the afternoon commute.

On Tuesday the ZipperLane remained stuck, cutting off two of the H-1's four lanes from the airport viaduct at Sand Island to the Wai­awa overpass, where the H-1 expands to six lanes.

By midafternoon it took drivers more than 40 minutes to travel 5 miles from downtown to Hono­lulu Airport, DOT officials said.

And it took more than three hours to get from downtown to Mili­lani and to Kapo­lei. Westbound H-1 traffic backed up as far as Wai­alae Avenue in Kai­muki.

The technician from the ZipMobile vendor, Zip U There, was slated to arrive from the mainland with fresh battery packs to replace the ones that inexplicably failed Tuesday.

Ed Sniffen, deputy director of the DOT's Highways Division, said he hoped the technician can solve the underlying problem that caused the battery packs to fail in the first place — and get the ZipMobile running to put the ZipperLane back in time for Wednesday's pau hana traffic.

The snag did not mark the first-ever ZipperLane problem.

On Jan. 17, 2014, one ZipMobile shut down the eastbound ZipperLane for the morning commute when its brakes locked up, and an axle had to be removed from the backup machine to return the first ZipMobile to its barn.

Tuesday's daylong traffic troubles began while the ZipMobile was closing the town-bound ZipperLane at 8:30 a.m. in the Wai­kele area.

Then at 9:30 a.m. "the ZipMobile died," Sniffen said.

ZipperLanes normally increase the H-1's capacity by an additional 2,200 vehicles — or 25 percent — every hour during the morning commute, Sniffen said. An estimated 4,600 vehicles use the H-1 ZipperLane every weekday, he said.

After the ZipMobile died Tuesday, technicians swapped out a battery pack from the state's other ZipMobile, but the replacement battery pack also failed.

"So the computer can't run the ZipMobile," Sniffen said.

By the time the disabled ZipMobile was towed away at 3 p.m., traffic was already terrible.

Then it got worse when a traffic accident in front of Kahana Bay closed lanes in both directions on Kame­ha­meha Highway for roughly one hour, starting at about 4 p.m.

"We absolutely apologize to the public," Sniffen said.

DOT's two ZipMobiles are 17 years old, and officials are working with Zip U There to figure out how much it would cost to overhaul them, Sniffen said.

The life span of a ZipMobile is estimated to be 20 years, Sniffen said.

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Honolulu is number three!