RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

Works Min­is­ter Ro­han Sinanan says he is await­ing a re­port fol­low­ing the par­tial col­lapse of the $280 mil­lion Mos­qui­to Creek seg­ment of the Solomon Ho­choy High­way Ex­ten­sion project.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia on Mon­day, Sinanan said the Na­tion­al In­fra­struc­ture De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion as well as con­sul­tants, were con­tin­u­ing to do in­ves­ti­ga­tions to de­ter­mine why the high­way col­lapsed.

When Guardian Me­dia vis­it­ed, fur­ther slip­page was seen along the road. Part of the col­lapsed road was cov­ered with plas­tic but the new­er cracks re­mained vis­i­ble. Frothy brack­ish wa­ter could be seen in­side the cracks which spanned about 400 feet of road­way.

There were al­so cracks on the revet­ment wall, run­ning along­side the coast. Heavy stones placed to break the on­slaught of waves were low­er than when they were first laid.

Asked to com­ment Sinanan said, “NID­CO put out a state­ment. They are in­ves­ti­gat­ing along with con­sul­tants. Once in­ves­ti­ga­tions are com­plete and I get a re­port, I will be able to tell you more.”

In its state­ment, NID­CO said the ex­act cause of the road in­sta­bil­i­ty was un­der in­ves­ti­ga­tion.

En­gi­neers on the project had not­ed that the Mos­qui­to Creek area was at the high­est risk of fail­ure dur­ing con­struc­tion due to the pre­vail­ing ge­ot­ech­ni­cal con­di­tions of the soil, NID­CO added.

“Con­tin­u­ous con­struc­tion loads and the tra­vers­ing of heavy con­struc­tion equip­ment, cou­pled with un­fin­ished con­struc­tion works, may have caused the in­sta­bil­i­ty,” the com­pa­ny said.

NID­CO ex­plained that its con­sult­ing en­gi­neer AE­COM will de­vel­op de­signs to un­der­take re­pairs to the failed area to pre­vent any dis­rup­tion to traf­fic.

An of­fi­cial from AE­COM who was on the site de­clined to com­ment. En­gi­neers from NID­CO as well as oth­er qual­i­ty con­trol per­son­nel al­so de­clined com­ment.

But for­mer NID­CO con­sul­tant and pres­i­dent of the South Oropouche River­ine Flood Ac­tion Group Ed­ward Mood­ie told CNC3 News that the high­way was built on marsh­lands. He said the first plan was to build a cause­way but this was not done

“They de­cid­ed not to go that way. They built on silt­ed land where there is marsh­land go­ing very deep un­der­ground. When they opened the white bridge at Paria Suites, that en­tire area start­ed to sink and they con­demned it and dug it out. They brought in ge­o­foam. But in this area, they used ge­o­t­ex­tile. When this road was ini­tial­ly con­struct­ed they used teak planks to sta­bilise the road know­ing that it was heavy marsh­lands,” Mood­ie said.

He added, “There is ab­solute­ly no drainage for two kilo­me­tres from the man­grove go­ing in­to the seas. Na­ture in­tend­ed that the man­grove be drained and should be flood­ed back with sea­wa­ter. They de­cid­ed to stop that. There is a riv­er in the mid­dle of the high­way that comes to a dead stop when it hits the high­way.”

He said, “ The wa­ter from the sea is pen­e­trat­ing, wa­ter from the man­groves is pen­e­trat­ing. When they vi­brate with their equip­ment, they break the co­he­sive forces and the sur­face ten­sion. Every­thing is loose and is giv­ing back to na­ture.”

Mood­ie said this was not the first time that the road had failed.

“There is a place in Jan­gal that will al­so fail. The on­ly thing that will help here is deep piles. This wall, built as a revet­ment wall has no foot­ing for the walls, now the wall is bent and is cav­ing in­to the sea,” Mood­ie added.

He said the con­sul­tants who did soil test­ing, as well as Nid­co should be held ac­count­able for wast­ing tax­pay­ers mon­ey.