With restricted passage, the road between Baraya and Colombia continues

2023-04-26 05:02:00

After the incident registered on the morning of Monday, April 24, restricted access continues on the highway that connects the municipalities of Baraya and Colombia, Huila.

DIARY OF HUILA, HUILA
By: Angelica Andrade Quimbaya

The collapse that occurred on the road that leads from Baraya to Colombia affected a large part of the sector known as El Tablazo, located approximately 600 meters from the El Venado bridge, which is why the total closure was maintained for about eight hours. of the highway, leaving the two municipalities located in the north of the department of Huila incommunicado.

One of the hypotheses regarding the causes that caused the incident has to do with alleged geological faults that have generated the movement of asphalt, a situation that worsens with the winter season. In dialogue with Diario del Huila, it was learned that the consortium in charge has made temporary arrangements using suitable material to fill in the space of approximately 150 centimeters deep, guaranteeing the provisional authorization of traffic, in order to mitigate the affectations regarding vehicular traffic. .

Consistently, the general and government secretary of the Baraya mayor’s office, Isidro Nieto Soto, stated that, after what was known through secondary sources, the affectation on the road that leads to the municipality of Colombia, Huila, generated quite pronounced damage that represents a latent risk for those who pass through the area.

“The affectation is imminent in the sense that it is still a little removed from the town, an event that leads people to make a transfer, affecting the economy and health care as well as in other areas that are required for normal development. of the population of the municipality of Colombia. In the area of El Tablazo, to the El Venado bridge onwards, reaching Los Lagos, is where the breakdown is and from there to Colombia it is withdrawn in what compromises the urban area, which generates more trauma for the issue of mobility of the doubly Colombian inhabitants”, mentioned the government secretary of the municipality of Baraya, Isidro Nieto.

Similarly, the official added that he has approached some leaders of the municipality of Colombia, who have stated that the situation is “tremendous”: “Regarding the collapse, the companies would go to that site and they would have to make a kind of transfer for the transfer, for which reason on Monday there were vehicles that came to the area to
transporting those who traveled from Neiva or from Baraya to Colombia,” Nieto said.

In addition to this, the official made reference to the fact that the departmental government has come to the site to make the necessary interventions: “It is not an exclusive issue of trafficability, but rather that several sites are at serious risk and the departmental government agencies know that because so it has been communicated. Just here, in the municipality of Baraya, because of the winter, the pertinent complaint has also been made because we are about to run out of roads in the area of the bridge of the La Nutria ravine where there was serious damage and at this moment it is in risk that it also runs out of track; the same, traveling from Baraya to Tello, there are two crossroads that are broken, the danger is latent and let’s say that there is less than one road where the cars pass, very narrow, the floor is broken and the political will is very important to do what is pertinent to intervene in these sites that are about to leave the north of the department of Huila and the south of Tolima incommunicado,” the government secretary pointed out.

The movements are still under observation, since a considerable level of telluric activity is maintained.

Causes

Faced with the causes and the situation that occurs in the area between Baraya and Colombia, Diario del Huila established contact with the territorial director of the National Institute of Roads, Invias, territorial Huila, Jesús Eduardo Rincón Silva, who assured that they continue to carry out the analyzes that allow the details to be clarified, therefore, during the morning of today, April 26, there will be a visit from the experts in charge of the investigations.

“We developed the activities there in the movement to be able to make the corridor passable. Likewise, the movement is still under observation because some degree of activity is still maintained and during the morning a visit by specialized personnel is planned, both on site and in intervention to assess what caused the movement and what would be the possible conditions and solution options ” Rincon Silva said.

Likewise, the director of Invias, territorial Huila, pointed out that the affectation is relative, since: “They are approximately between 60 and 100 meters longitudinally, it settled on one side to about 150 centimeters and 50 centimeters on the other side. We are also awaiting how the process continues to provide a solution,” Rincón indicated, reiterating that they are still waiting for the movement to cease to carry out definitive interventions in order to guarantee complete transit and
that the road will remain provisionally enabled.

For her part, the Secretary of Roads and Infrastructure of the Department of Huila, engineer Eliana Paola Conde Gutiérrez, stated that: “The Government of Huila has been in coordination with INVIAS, an institution that has permission to intervene in the affected section between the municipalities of Baraya and Colombia, where an anomaly has occurred that refers to differential subsidence in the track section, where it is not possible to establish the occurrence of a critical site,
however, INVIAS has contracted personnel in the area and has a provisional passage set up for community transit.”

It is waiting to evaluate the causes that generated the movement.

Community

On the other hand, Diario del Huila approached the inhabitants of the area where the incident occurred, who agree that, due to the multiple failures in the road corridor, it is time for the corresponding authorities to intervene definitively, in order to avoid economic and social effects.

“Due to the rain, around nine-thirty in the morning on Monday, the ground gave way and since they are doing maintenance on that road that has just been implemented because there are always breakdowns, that ground is not stable, it is a point that they say El Tablazo and we wait for my consent that the road should already be delivered. Right now they are making a ditch to prevent the affectation from continuing to grow. On this occasion, there were people who had to walk for almost ten hours to transfer from one car to another, and around half past four they filled it up to be able to open the road again,” said Pedro González, a resident of the municipality. from Baraya, Huíla.

“The community was affected from approximately nine in the morning until four in the afternoon and both people who move in their cars and those who travel in public service cars were affected. Many residents had to wait while, in an improvised manner, a kind of mini highway was built on one side to be able to move to the municipalities of Baraya and Tello, so this damage also caused a certain impact on
the merchants since the trucks that supply the municipality of Colombia could not reach the municipal seat, but only reached this part and from there they tried to transfer what they had in those trucks. More or less 400 people who were trying to get around on Monday were affected and we are quite concerned because this area is in the process of paving and at this point something similar has already happened, the road had already shown faults and they had already fixed them. In general, the road has not been delivered by the Vía La Macarena consortium, which is in charge of the adjustments that are in the test phase and for this reason it must be responsible for maintaining the final passage in that section. We hope that this will be resolved as soon as possible and that it will be passable according to the commitments and the
legal regulations to be able to move without problems to Neiva”, asserted Cristian Ramírez, community leader in the municipality of Colombia, Huila.