San Pedro tunnel taking shape
Work on the scheme to take the A7 main road underground is now 75% completed. Specialised machinery is now digging underground to shape the gallery that will eventually become a double tunnel with four lanes of traffic.
Work on the new underpass has exposed the core of San Pedro Alcántara; well as far down as a depth of 6 metres.The construction firm OHL, which has been given the task of building this tunnel, has now started excavation work to shape the double gallery that will run for a kilometre beneath the town of San Pedro.
The completed project is expected to cost around the 60 million euro mark and is already 75% per cent completed. According to sources from the Ministry of Development, this time last week the machinery had already broken through some 120 metres to create the underground gallery.
This amounts to more than ten per cent of the total length of the tunnel although excavation work is currently taking place simultaneously at four different points along the 997 metre total length.
The results are clearer at the central excavation points where the still unpolished support piles resemble the columns of an ancient temple buried under the ground. There are two large rooms with high ceilings and three rows of pillars that stretch for several metres along the underground cavity. The excavation machinery, however, jolts us back to reality. They are working at a steady rhythm throughout the day and into the night.
In January, OHL brought in the night shift so that the tunnel works could continue around the clock. However, the rain has meant that work has not been able to progress as fast as the firm would have liked and the night shift has only really been operating since the middle of March. Ministry sources confirm that the rain has caused a significant delay because the work has been practically at a standstill for three months.
It is only now that the project is picking up speed as more labour is being brought in after many of the 100 workmen who were busy on the site at the end of last year had to be laid off during the bad weather.
In theory, the delay should not mean that the project will be finished behind schedule and the estimated completion date is still the end of 2010 or beginning of 2011. To meet this deadline, the pace of the work will be speeded up, both underground and on the surface. The plan is to reopen the road to traffic when the road surface above the tunnel has been replaced whilst work will continue underground. However, the Ministry pointed out that the road will only be open to local traffic while the southern bypass will remain open for vehicles wanting to bypass San Pedro.
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