The Governing Council has taken cognizance of the state of emergency works for the stabilisation of slopes and repair of drainage works on the A-349 road in the Almanzora region, whose work will remedy the damage caused to the road network by the heavy rains that occurred between 19 and 23 May in the municipalities of Tahal, Macael and Olula del Río, located on the northern slopes of the Sierra de los Filabres.
The works, with a budget of 739,952 euros, have an estimated duration of five months.
The A-349 road, which belongs to the inter-regional network of the Andalusian Autonomous Road Network, is an extremely important road for communications in the area, given the structural nature of this road in the province and the lack of viable alternative routes.
Since the morning of 22 May, accumulated rainfall of up to almost 200 litres per square metre has been recorded, with moments when 37 litres were recorded in one hour in the Levante and Cuevas del Almanzora area.
As a result, there were significant landslides on the slopes of the A-349 which caused the occupation of the roadway, shoulders, berms and ditches.
In addition, the runoff action of a large mass of water caused the breakage of drainage works, several sections of longitudinal ditches and foundation slabs of transversal drainage works.
The serious damage to the carriageway and functional elements of this road meant that, if action was not taken quickly, this section would have to be closed imminently, as the minimum road safety conditions were not met as the drainage works were inoperative, causing water to enter the carriageway with the consequent ‘aquaplaning’ effect on vehicles travelling on the road.
The works, which have been awarded to the company Construcciones Nila S.A., have already begun and are at an execution rate of 15.63%.
At present, the A-349 road is in service and the circulation is enabled with small occasional cuts depending on the needs of the development of the works.
The intervention, in which 17 people are working, involves the removal of the existing landslides, as well as the cleaning of the beads and drainage works, which are silted up by a significant accumulation of earth.
Similarly, in several of the sections, the loose and unstable earth on the slopes will be cleared and topped to improve their stability. In addition, the existing concrete slab under the road bridge at kilometre point 10.8 will be repaired, which was destroyed by the recent floods.
The section between Tahal and Macael has an average daily intensity of 1,612 vehicles/day, of which 7.88% are heavy vehicles, while on the section between Macael and Olula del Río the daily traffic is 8,711 vehicles, of which 3.58% are heavy vehicles.