About 300 metres of the road leading to Luangwa town was recently damaged as a result of natural earth movements, prompting authorities to close it for the safety of users.
The damage is attributed to heavy rains.
RDA director communications and corporate affairs Loyce Saili said in an interview yesterday that transportation of the road rehabilitation equipment started yesterday from Lusaka.
“The equipment for the contractor has started off and will be on site tomorrow [today] because they are moving at a slow pace and, as you might be aware, heavy-duty equipment is not allowed to move at night.”
Ms Saili has also said investigations into the cause of the damage are still ongoing and details will be given when the process is completed.
“Our immediate occupation is to provide an alternative [route] and other details will follow. The rehabilitation process will take some time and we will engage Disaster Management and Mitigation Unit to help with getting people across either with boats or other means,” she said.
Meanwhile, a team of experts from the Geological Survey Department in the Ministry of Mines and Minerals Development is trying to find the cause of the lateral movement of earth which damaged a 300-metre stretch on the Luangwa-Feira Road.
The damage happened on Monday night as a result of what experts say is natural earth movement, leaving scores of motorists to and from Luangwa and Feira stranded on either side of impaired stretch after authorities closed the road.
Mines and Minerals Development Permanent Secretary Paul Chanda confirmed the deployment of experts from the Geological Survey Department in an interview yesterday, saying they would compile a comprehensive report on the cause of lateral movement of the earth from the hillside which seemed to have caused the damage to the road.
“As a ministry, we are also concerned about what happened to that road. This morning (yesterday) we sent officers from our Geological Survey Department to investigate the cause of the movement of the earth leading to damage on the road,” he said.
Mr Chanda said he was hopeful that the officers would give a report and the nation would be updated today.
Meanwhile, Luangwa acting District Commissioner Ngoni Moyo said a team of engineers from the Road Development Agency (RDA) and officers from the Department of National Parks and Wildlife that carried out an assessment in the forest to create a temporary road discovered that the area was covered with depressions.
Mr Moyo said, according to the report his office received yesterday, the section of provisional road was covered with trees and stones and could pose a danger to motorists.
“The team carried out surveys and have found out that it was impossible to create a temporary road because of huge trees, stones and depressions,” Mr Moyo said.
Council secretary Gilbert Sendama said the engineers had since recommended that the mountain be dismantled to allow the gravel and stones to be put on the edges of the road to widen it.
Mr Sendama said the alternative deviation was about 40 kilometres from the Luangwa-Feira Road and it required full rehabilitation if it was to be used by motorists.
He said the contractor, China Geo, was yet to move to the site to assess the damage and suggest a workaround.
Any latest news ba lusaka times from RDA, on the high economically active road in mamba, what has RDA done about it?
Are we mining gold in feira for this road to receive such agent attention?
PF bandits are still running around in circles?
It was poor workmanship & will the PF bandits stop blaming the rains of God!
Most of these roads were only painted on top with bitumen to blindfold the gullible people. PF bandits squandered the Euro bond~kaloba into their kwashiorkor stomachs.
You paint the ground with bitumen~manenekela & cheat people that PF is constructing roads when in fact NOT. Shame on you PF bandits!
The Skeleton Key
~206~
Another $10millions for that 800 meters, which will take 8 months.
Goodness me, that road is not strong its just black stuff put on top. I have never seen a Tarmac with so much sand under it. Corrupt ministers ate the money compromising on quality
THIS IS WHAT RDA AND PF WANTS. NOW THEY WILL GET ANOTHER USELESS CONTRACTOR TO MEND THE ROAD.MEANWHILE THEIR POCKETS WILL BE FULL AT THE END OF THE CONTRACT SUCH THAT SOME MONIES WILL BE KEPT IN THEIR BEDROOMS. SHAME ON US ZAMBIANS ESPECIALLY US TAX PAYERS
What’s the latest on the Arsenal / Bayern Munich Match?
Google BBC sports //champions League, ba sharp spear, this article is about mangled less than a year old roads.
Why blame the rains instead of just castigating and reprimanding this fake Chinese contractor reaping us off by doing shoddy road works and paying these equally dull Zambian engineers kickbacks? Why can’t they tell us how long this road has lasted since it was done. Roads done in the UNIP era are still in existence after how many years of rains? This is cheap politicking and utter nonsense, instead of calling a spade a spade you call it a hoe. Tell us who is going to foot this bill as well? Earth movement blar blar blar what load of crap. Are these the engineers the this country produces? Tell it like it is shambolic, disastrous, precarious and corrupt that’s all.
Tell us about the initial quality of work. It is obvious it wasn’t good.
More money in the pocket of corrupt people