Serbian bridge: complete ban changes the lives of 10,000 residents

Just five days after the decision not to cross the High Bridge of Serbia for vehicles over 3.5 tons, a new decision has been made to permanently ban all vehicles from passinguntil the first bridge restoration work is completed.

That preceded her command Kozan District Prosecutor to the city police department for an urgent preliminary check, emphasizing the need to “take measures to completely prohibit traffic on the bridge if the slightest possibility of its collapse is detected.”

What led to the closure of the bridge and how did it affect the lives of residents of nearby settlements in practice?

Growing crack

OUR Athanasios Vouras is the Head of the Transportation Execution Department in the Department of Technical Services of the Western Macedonia Region, the project manager for the restoration of the problem point of the bridge and the one who proposed a decision to completely ban the passage of vehicles.

“First of all, let’s say that the restoration work is ongoing,” he tells K, while emphasizing that “we are at the stage of waiting for funding in the amount of 2,500,000 euros from general study ministry so that the auction can begin.”

“We saw cars that had to cross the bridge at speeds up to 40 km/h.”

Mr Vouras notes that when work began last week, engineers installed a special device that electronically measures the size of the crack very accurately. “We understood that the passage of heavy vehicles could accelerate the opening of the crack.therefore, the passage of heavy vehicles was initially prohibited,” he notes, adding that yesterday, after measurements for some days, the technicians discovered that the crack was active and growing. “We already had material evidence in our hands,” says Mr. -Mr Vouras and emphasizes: – at the same time we also saw sad phenomenon on these days of partial traffic – cars that were supposed to cross the bridge at a speed of up to 40 km / h drive at high speed. We are doing maintenance in a dangerous place at the moment, we don’t want an accident.”

Serbia Bridge: total ban changes the lives of 10,000 inhabitants-1 — The area where the area’s technicians work (Photo: Christos Eleftheriou).

The laborious task of recovery

Question When will the bridge be up and running again?, he himself answers that work on this “first restoration” will be completed in two months at the most. “A check will then be made to make sure the operation was successful. One-way traffic on the bridge due to the operation of the traffic light will become a condition for its opening“, says Mr Vouras, adding that when the bridge reopens, all vehicles will pass, while the intention is to keep electronic crack sensors in order to have a permanent picture of the situation.

However, residents of settlements on both sides of the bridge are hopeless about what is happening and express fear that the problems will not be solved immediately. “Our municipality is now fragmented,” says the mayor of Serbia, Christos Eleftheriou “K,” and emphasizes that seven settlements located on the other side of the bridge and numbering about 2,000 inhabitants have “departed” from Serbia.

“Country roads are inadequate, they can’t handle the traffic jams that have begun to pile up.”

Students, teachers and municipality workers from the aforementioned villages already have to travel a longer distance crossing the nearby Remniu bridge to reach Serbia. “The same is done by a general practitioner who visits residents in the villages. We pay for this at the expense of the municipality, because doctors no longer work in our Health Center – they quit a long time ago, and the advertisements for filling their vacancies always remain empty,” Mr. Eleftheriou describes and adds. that ten other localities with a population of 8,000 are facing similar problems.

As he says: “While it used to take us 20 minutes to get to Kozani, now we need at least an hour. And this is because, in addition to high mileage, provincial roads are unusable and cannot withstand traffic jams that have begun to form.

Mayor Velveda also describes an extremely difficult situation, Manolis Stergiou. He emphasizes that the most important problem that arises in the region is the problem of access to medical services. “To get to the Kozani hospital, residents need more than an hour’s drive. We have a regional clinic where two pathologists worked, but during the coronovirus they were transferred to the Kozani hospital. Since then, a pathologist from the hospital comes to visit us once or twice a week. We do not know what will happen now that the distance has increased. Congestion has already formed on bad and narrow roads passing through settlements. We have already seen columns of truckers, trucks, buses, vehicles and cars moving slowly and essentially circling the area..

In fact, we are going through a period when the farmers of Velvento need fertilizers for peaches and the trucks that supply us now have to join this line of many trucks. What happens when they have to enter the area even more en masse to load the peaches that will be sent from here all over Greece and abroad? If a fire starts, if we urgently need an ambulance?“.

It is noted that the neighboring Remni Bridge, which has already begun to overflow, is the third largest in Greece and was built a little earlier than the Serbian Bridge, in the 1970s, with the aim of supporting it up to the longest bridge in Serbia. opens. These are projects that were implemented in 1973, when the artificial lake Polifitou was built (at the expense of the KPP plant). According to Mr. Vouras, the Rimniu Bridge is the responsibility of the Kozani Prefecture, which recently inspected it and found it to be in good condition.

Growing crack

The laborious task of recovery

“Dismembered” villages and traffic jams

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