Workers drilled 15-ft.-deep holes into the rock to insert explosives before blasting it apart on May 26. (CDOT photo)

CORTEZ, Colo. (AP) Workers have blasted apart a house-sized boulder that crashed onto and shut down a southwestern Colorado highway linking Durango and Ouray.

The Colorado Department of Transportation said trucks are hauling away fragments of the 1,150-ton (1,047-t) rock from state Highway 145 while workers build a temporary bypass.

The Cortez Journal reported workers drilled 15-ft.-deep holes into the rock to insert explosives before blasting it apart on May 26.

That was done after workers checked the stability of a ridgeline 1,000 ft. (305 m) above from where that boulder and another fell on May 24.

The second boulder crashed across the road, creating an 8-ft. trench. No one was hurt.

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