State Transportation Department officials will have one contraflow lane open today and tomorrow to accommodate morning and afternoon rush-hour traffic on Kamehameha Highway at Waimea Bay after a rockslide Saturday shut down the problem-plagued North Shore passage.

A private contractor hired by the state sent workers up the 400-foot-wide hillside above the highway yesterday to knock down loose boulders and rocks, DOT spokesman Scott Ishikawa said.

Once that is completed, crews will clear away the fallen rocks.

Barring another slide, one lane will be open today for morning rush-hour traffic, after which the highway will be closed again to allow for work to continue. A lane will be open again for afternoon traffic.

Transportation officials say the highway should be open today and tomorrow from 4 to 8:30 a.m. and from 3 to 7 p.m.

Traffic will be contraflowed, either by flagmen directing traffic or portable traffic lights, Ishikawa said.

The rest of the day, the highway will be closed so work removing rocks and making repairs can continue, Ishikawa said.

Officials hope to have one lane open all day by Wednesday.

The rockslide early Saturday morning was near the same place where fallen boulders shut down Kamehameha Highway for 95 days in March 2000.

Officials said Saturday's rockslide was much worse than the one seven years ago.

They credited a 1,000-foot metal impact fence erected between the highway and the cliff face after the 2000 rockslide with holding back most of the boulders, some weighing tons.

A $7.5 million road realignment, also completed after the earlier slide, minimized the amount of damage by moving the highway farther from the cliff, they said.

Personnel from the Department of Land and Natural Resources and the Historic Preservation Office completed an inspection of caves above the rockslide site and found no bones, or iwi, of deceased Hawaiians.

Reach Rod Ohira at rohira@honoluluadvertiser.com.