Bridge in Matanzas will be closed due to deterioration of beams and slabs

Cuban authorities announced the closure of a bridge in Matanzas due to the "significant deterioration of beams and deck slabs" that support the structure; and they recognized that there are no resources to undertake immediate repair.

The Girón newspaper reported on Facebook that it is the so-called La Jaiba bridge, on the ring road that links the city of Matanzas with the limits of the province of Mayabeque.

The measure was taken by the Provincial Road Safety Commission and will be implemented starting next Monday, March 28.

The execution of the work to rescue the structure, however, will not begin until next 2023, because in this yearThe local government did not designate a budget for the repair of the bridges from Matanzas.

Geobel Quintero Hernández, coordinator of the Provincial Government, said that the capital repair of the building will be carried out by specialists from the Provincial Viability Center and the Road Maintenance brigade.

The closure of the bridge "will prevent the occurrence in that stretch of accidents with unforeseeable consequences for those who pass through it as pedestrians or in vehicles, since the cracks and the exposure of ribs warn of this," added the manager.

Cubans must access the city through an alternative access route: "the junction section of the Bellotex textile industry, a road that leads to the so-called Loma de la Herradura, to the Camilo Cienfuegos neighborhood," he explained.

"Those who are going to Havana will turn left, and those who travel to the Yumurina city will turn right," the newspaper said, and assured that this road has already been prepared and signposted by the Transit Unit.

On March 17, it emerged that the State budget in Matanzas did not include any budget for 2022 for the repair of the bridges in that city, whose structural conditions are worsening every day.

The bridges are not only symbols that identify this city in western Cuba, but alsoimportant transit routes that allow the operation internal to the capital of Matanzas.

The structural problems and lack of repair of Matanzas bridges are not recent. The famous Swing Bridge, which was once a railway crossing over the San Juan River, a jewel of local and national engineering built between 1903 and 1904, is no longer allowed for pedestrian crossing. Even so, children and adolescents use it as an improvised trampoline despite the dangers it represents.

Others of equal importance are seriously damaged, such as theLacret Morlot that ofThe Concord – built in 1878 very close to the mouth of the Yumurí River and the only road through which vehicles can reach the Versailles area – also shows signs of deterioration, but it cannot be repaired due to lack of resources.