Cuban Vice PM evaluates the effects of the bridge collapse in Mayarí
- Written by Yanela Ruiz González
- Published in Holguin
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Inés María Chapman Waugh, Deputy Prime Minister of the Republic of Cuba, arrived in the Popular Council of Arroyo Seco, in the municipality of Mayarí, Holguín province where on Saturday the bridge in the area collapsed due to the flooding of the river caused by the heavy rains occurred on the last days.
The event occurred around one in the morning, according to testimonies from the neighbors, who heard a stampede caused by the collapse of the bridge, affected by more than 100 meters of its 280 length.
As a consequence of the collapse of the viaduct, located at the end of the Mayarí dam, the access to the settlements of Angostura, Cuatro Veredas, Calunga, Los Laneros, Camarones and Jicotea was interrupted.
In this regard, the defense council in the area was activated immediately in order to make viable the actions that allow continuing the vitality of those communities, with a population of more than 490 people, including about 100 children.
Raul Nieto, vice president of the Defense Council here, explained that measures are being taken to locate all the necessary resources in the communities that were left isolated, so that there is as little movement of people to the other side of the river until a solution is found in this access road, which also communicates with settlements in the Santiago de Cuba municipality of Segundo Frente.
Joint local forces belonging to the PNR and the Ranger Corps preserve the affected area to avoid the approach of the population and with it the occurrence of more events, since up to now there has been no damage to life.
For his part, Juan Mario Hechavarría, delegate of Hydraulic Resources in Holguín, commented that at the end of May the rainfall in the province behaved at 135 percent, with the report of 219.5 millimeters of rain, although the municipality of Mayarí is not among those of greater benefits in this sense.
The dam of the same name was the one that accumulated the most water on Friday, since it is fed by the tributaries that flow from the "Segundo Frente" municipality, where the rains were more intense.
Hence, when the volume of water drained towards the Mayari area, added to the obstruction of the bridge caissons, caused the collapse of this bridge, which dates back to 2015, when it was inaugurated.
After the on-site evaluations by Deputy Prime Minister Chapman Waugh, the authorities and specialists in the territory agreed to rebuild the bridge in the shortest possible time, starting with the execution of a work that is more resistant to this type of impact.
