Floods in Madagascar: the RN2, fundamental axis of the country, cut
At the BNGRC, the management of relief operations continues to be organised.
In Moramanga, pointed out on the map, the dike which gave way and washed away part of the road also caused 3 deaths and more than 800 victims.
Because of this "breach" in the RN2, the road connecting the east coast to the capital (on the left on the map), all supplies on the island are suspended.
© SarahTetaud/RFI
Text by: RFI Follow
3 mins
This is one of the consequences of tropical storm Ana and its heavy floods which have been hitting half of the island of Madagascar for a week.
Part of the national road 2 (RN2), fundamental axis of the country, was washed away by the waters, in the night of Saturday to Sunday January 23.
Road traffic has since come to a complete standstill between Tamatave and Antananarivo.
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With our correspondent in Antananarivo
,
Sarah Tétaud
The coastal city, economic capital of the country due to its port, is thus cut off from the rest of the country and it is all the supply of the island which is stopped today.
A delicate situation which adds to an equally worrying situation, that of the number of disaster victims which continues to grow.
More than 62,000 people are affected.
37,000 of them have found refuge in emergency accommodation in the capital.
For three days, the strategic cordon of the island has been completely paralyzed.
In three places, the RN2 was damaged.
It is at PK 108, at the entrance to Moramanga, that the damage is the most important: a gaping hole, about twenty meters long, prevents all traffic, says Manantsoa Razafindralambo, director of emergency support, at the Ministry of Public Works.
“
It is the axis that connects the capital to the large port of Toamasina.
All the goods, the fuel, the fuel oil to feed the power stations which come from abroad pass by this road.
In the other direction, everything that goes outside also transits by this road
”, he specifies.
On site, the decision was made to build a Bailey bridge, a prefabricated metal structure, initially designed for military use.
“
We are going to build a 24 meter modular bridge on the cut part.
We're going to start installing it on Tuesday morning and we're going to put it up in 48 hours.
The bridge will be fully functional no later than Thursday.
It will be able to support all kinds of vehicles, including heavy goods vehicles,
” adds Manantsoa Razafindralambo.
A temporary bridge under construction
Thirty men have been hard at work since Monday, January 21, to build this temporary bridge.
The Ministry of Public Works already had some of the elements of the bridge in its stock.
The aprons, themselves, "
will be taken from another structure of the RN44, which was no longer functional
" indicates the ministry.
This incident reveals, once again, how much the road network, essential to the country, has been neglected by successive regimes.
“The state of degradation is mainly caused by the lack of maintenance, but this year, the ministry will schedule regular maintenance to avoid such degradation during bad weather. It is planned for this year,
”adds the ministry.
The work should be replaced within a few months by a permanent bridge.
In the meantime, heavy goods vehicles pile up on either side of the collapsed road.
On the Tana side, the observers contacted speak of a line of trucks reaching 5 km.
Once the connection has been reestablished, drivers will still have to be patient: the "emergency" bridge only has a single lane.
Traffic will therefore be alternating.
In the rest of the island, heavy rains are still expected until Wednesday for the center of the country, and weekend for the North.
35 dead, mostly in Antananarivo
In the capital, the situation remains worrying, explains General Elack, head of the national office for risk and disaster management: “
It is serious at the level of the dykes.
There are threats of dikes breaking.
And there is a risk of even greater flooding than at present.
»
The local populations of the three rivers around Antananarivo, always placed in red vigilance, were invited to leave their homes.
The torrential rains and its consequences have already killed 35 people, most of them in the capital.
Schools in 33 communes or localities including Antananarivo remain closed until next Monday.
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