They reopen the bridge over the Toa with delay and they are still repairing the Moa-Baracoa highway

The construction of the bridge over the Toa River (Guantánamo) started in April 2017 and although with It was planned to be completed in eight months., it was at the end of summer of this year that the works were completed, although still, in the month of October, the repair and paving of the Moa-Baracoa highway has not been completed.

Neighbors and local authorities consider that the final repair of the bridge promotes greater economic movement and favors the flow of tourists, which they hope will multiply once the road under construction, which will link Moa and Baracoa, is completed.

Despite the delays and the delay of more than a year over the initially planned date, the residents of the area are happy to see the important crossing reopened, which allows the transit not only of vehicles, but also of pedestrians.

"We are no longer cut off when it rains on the hills and the waters come down furiously. This bridge is for centuries, even when it was under construction it withstood nearly 20 floods and you almost don't even notice," a local told a local press. the island.

The bridge completely collapsed in the early morning of October 5, 2016., during Hurricane Matthew, which brought major flooding and material destruction in the municipality of Baracoa and in surrounding territories of the province of Guantánamo.

The construction of the new viaduct was carried out with Venezuelan help, according to what the newspaper insists on remembering. Granma, and the delays would have been due to two months of rain that caused new flooding of the river and "the blockade", which, according to the aforementioned media, would have prevented "acquiring special materials in a third country for the manufacture of the metal structure of the engineering installation".

The construction of the work required the placement of hundreds of tons of reinforcing steel and thousands of cubic meters of concrete. Cuban entities such as the construction companies of Guantánamo and Moa, Hydraulic Resources, Prefabricated, the Fire Department and Cubiza of Holguín worked on the project.

The bridge is 225 meters long, 11 meters wide and 11.88 meters high above sea level. It weighs 564 tons and vehicles weighing up to 80 tons can travel through it.

The Toa rises in the municipality of Yateras and flows northwest of the city of Baracoa. It has an extension of 130 km and its name comes from an indigenous word that means frog.