Post by livinginmedellin on Jan 17, 2017 9:13:40 GMT -5
Finally, yesterday, they announced what was promised for 13 days: they will enable the passage of vehicles along the Medellín-Bogota highway.
Last night was made way for light vehicles, including buses and busetas that go in direction to Bogota; the other direction, for all kinds of vehicles. In both directions, motorcycles and bicycles can not yet be transported.
That collapse in the kilometer 14 + 350, that from so much to read it in this newspaper already will be etched in the memory, it seems that it is finally coming to an end.
On Sunday a reporter went to the area because he was tired of waiting, and as one day they said that yes they opened, the other that tomorrow, the other that no longer, I decided that he better check on his own why so much delay.
The reporter witnessed that the workers worked to exhaustion to clear the freeway, but that is that as much as they took out and took out huge earth and stones, at night again more material fell. A whole day's work was lost.
Until the engineers came up with an idea. Speaking to Germán Vélez, manager of Devimed, he told the reporter that instead of continuing to fight against nature, they would build an embankment with the same land, so that the cars pass over it.
This was done, and waited the earth to be dry, because it was wet with so much rain these days, a layer of 30 centimeters of recycled pavement was put, so that trucks could pass.
The Secretary of the Government of Copacabana, Luz Hincapié, told me that the embankment is a temporary solution, that there were no risks of new landslides, and that they would continue to work to solve this problem definitively.
Although ... I have to say, I still do not have many illusions, because with all that has happened, it would not be at all strange that even the famous embankment can not contain the will of the mountain.
On the Medellín-Bogota highway the first cargo trucks are finally transiting after a 20-day closure.
See (in Spanish): www.elcolombiano.com/antioquia/obras/apertura-de-la-autopista-medellin-bogota-ED5764204
Last night was made way for light vehicles, including buses and busetas that go in direction to Bogota; the other direction, for all kinds of vehicles. In both directions, motorcycles and bicycles can not yet be transported.
That collapse in the kilometer 14 + 350, that from so much to read it in this newspaper already will be etched in the memory, it seems that it is finally coming to an end.
On Sunday a reporter went to the area because he was tired of waiting, and as one day they said that yes they opened, the other that tomorrow, the other that no longer, I decided that he better check on his own why so much delay.
The reporter witnessed that the workers worked to exhaustion to clear the freeway, but that is that as much as they took out and took out huge earth and stones, at night again more material fell. A whole day's work was lost.
Until the engineers came up with an idea. Speaking to Germán Vélez, manager of Devimed, he told the reporter that instead of continuing to fight against nature, they would build an embankment with the same land, so that the cars pass over it.
This was done, and waited the earth to be dry, because it was wet with so much rain these days, a layer of 30 centimeters of recycled pavement was put, so that trucks could pass.
The Secretary of the Government of Copacabana, Luz Hincapié, told me that the embankment is a temporary solution, that there were no risks of new landslides, and that they would continue to work to solve this problem definitively.
Although ... I have to say, I still do not have many illusions, because with all that has happened, it would not be at all strange that even the famous embankment can not contain the will of the mountain.
On the Medellín-Bogota highway the first cargo trucks are finally transiting after a 20-day closure.
See (in Spanish): www.elcolombiano.com/antioquia/obras/apertura-de-la-autopista-medellin-bogota-ED5764204