The geological fault that on June 6 brought to light the risk of collapse of Las Palmas Avenue, at the height of the Intercontinental Hotel, Instead of improving, it got worse, because the mitigation work that has been done to date has done little to solve the problem, since the cracks in the pavement are getting deeper and deeper and the ground looks more sunken.
The same Medellín’s mayor’s office set off the alarms through its Secretary of Infrastructure, Natalia Urrego, who stated that in a review carried out the previous week it was noted that new cracks had appeared and a structural solution was required.
The problem consists of cracking in the road in a 130-meter section between the Intercontinental and the El Rancherito restaurant, which includes damage to the platform and to the coverage of the La Yerbabuena creek, which runs under the road, at whose walls are shedding chunks of concrete. It is the most worrying issue.
“That problem is not because of the creek, because it is very small and we have never seen it even grow,” says the custodian of a building in the sector, who has been on the site for eight years. He says that it all started with some water pipes that burst, that were not taken care of in time and the problem grew. As evidence he shows a hose that was installed to carry the water before the collapse of the pipe. The hose runs parallel to the platform.
insufficient monitoring
Contrary to what the citizen assures, the mayor’s office attributes the problem to a mass movement that occurs in the sector and that comes from long ago, since 2004. The failure causes damage to the road and affects mobility.
“From the Secretariat of Infrastructure, interventions have been carried out on the pavement to stabilize the asphalt layer and guarantee vehicular flow”, indicated Secretary Urrego. She said that signs have also been put up to slow down. At this point there are subsidence in the road that are not visible from a distance and surprise drivers when they already have little chance of manoeuvring, especially if they go down at high speed.
The Secretary of Infrastructure announced that this week a contract will be signed to initiate mitigation actions that have to do with reinforcing the coverage of the creek. “Some drains will be built to evacuate the waters that are dammed and thereby give greater stability to the land”, the official specified.
The important thing is that the announcement is fulfilled, because the pavement with which the cracks in the road were covered the days following June 6 gave way once more, the cracks opened and now some are up to ten cm wide. Monitoring has been done but no new works and the effects have grown.
The coverage of the ravine is gradually coming off in pieces and if the road is not thoroughly intervened it might collapse in both lanes. “The action on the ravine and the drains to evacuate the dammed waters will help to give it stability and contain the soil mass while some studies and designs that were carried out in 2004 and 2005 to intervene at the point are updated, which I am not useful because seismic resistance standards have changed.
This consultancy will make it possible to define the definitive works to be undertaken in the structural aspect to solve the root fault, which would even imply the closure of the important artery that connects the Aburrá and San Nicolás valleys.
