Inhabitants of the towns affected by the sinkhole and cutting of the Quito-Lago Agrio road, Piedra Fina sector, in the province of Napo, proposed to open an emerging road with their own efforts and resources.
At the beginning of December of last year, said highway collapsed as a result of the regressive erosion of the Coca River, a phenomenon that has occurred since February 2020 as a consequence of the disappearance of the San Rafael waterfall. This affected the road and the two pipelines that transport oil (SOTE and OCP).
For the transport of oil, the connection was restored in less than a month with 24-hour work days, but the same did not happen for the inhabitants.
The floods drag vehicles and make it difficult to circulate on the roads of Los Ríos
The initiative to open a provisional road was born from the residents of the Gonzalo Pizarro parish, El Chaco canton, who are the most affected by the closure of the road.
This town lived by providing lodging and food services to heavy transport drivers (tankers) who, on their long trips to Sucumbíos and Orellana, took a break and spent the night in this place.
Noting that the national government has not promoted the construction of a variant that allows the immediate connection between Sucumbíos and Quito, men and women took picks and shovels and began with the so-called minga of civil society, to open an emerging passage through the slopes of the sinkhole where the natural phenomenon left destruction, stones and mud.
Guadalupe Campoverde commented that on January 3, 2022, a group of people began with the idea of the minga to open a provisional passage, a few meters from the Quijos River, where the sinkhole had already passed, leaving an extensive desert area.
“We held a meeting, we put two people in charge, we set up commissions, for the kitchen, logistics, management, and we got down to work,” said the woman who is in charge of coordinating the group that prepares food for the mingueros.
Every day between 50 and 60 people come to work and collaborate in this initiative.
As the days passed, inhabitants of other towns affected by the destruction of the road also joined the initiative, they were joined by private companies, carriers, natural persons, with which they have hired heavy machinery, such as tractors and backhoes, to build the temporary road moving large mounds of mud and stones left by the sinkhole.
Campoverde lives in the Libertad enclosure, kilometer 95 of the Lago Agrio-Quito road. She lived off heavy transport, decided to close her business and joined the minga. “Bajito daily attended to 40 and 60 heavy transport vehicles that arrived at my whereabouts,” said the woman.
Like her, hundreds of businesses and tourist places have had to close because since December 2021, with the collapse of the highway in Piedra Fina, her clients have had to travel along the Baeza-Loreto-Coca-Lago Agrio road.
To support the minga, people hold raffles, food and money collections in the towns of Chaco, Gonzalo Pizarro and Lago Agrio, to gather economic resources and pay for the work of the machinery they have had to hire.
The leaders pointed out that the national government has not contributed money in this way, on the contrary, it has hindered the work and management carried out by civil society, they maintained.
The Deputy Minister of Transportation and Public Works would have told them that it was not possible to build this road on the slopes of the sinkhole, that it was very risky.
The citizen minga has been working for three and a half months and there has been no work accident.
“They told us we were crazy, but every idea is crazy until it comes true and now we see that we were right,” said Wilmer Corrales, who is in charge of coordinating the heavy machinery that works in the sector.
The emerging road through the slopes of the sinkhole has a length of 850 meters and is close to completion and with this the vehicular traffic between Lago Agrio and Quito will be recovered, but in principle the passage will be only for vehicles with 4×4 traction, motorcycles and small trucks .
At the moment, people are already moving along the road on foot, making transfers. Vehicles have also passed by for emergency reasons, the producers of the area, likewise, use it to transport their production on their shoulders to San Luis, where the stable highway can already be taken.
According to the leaders of the minga of civil society, in general terms up to now they have invested some 70,000 dollars in the work of opening the provisional variant, all achieved under self-management by civil society.
“We leave at eight in the morning and sometimes we come back at six in the afternoon, we spend the whole day here. Here we prepare lunch and try to be supportive as much as possible, because business is bad at home, there is no work, so we come to the minga to get the road out,” said Miriam Amaguaya.
Among the towns directly affected by the collapse of the Quito-Lago Agrio highway are San Francisco, La Libertad, Reventador, San Rafael, Piedra Fina, San Luis, San Carlos, el Salado, Cascabel, Guaitaringo, Tres Cruces, Las Palmas , and indirectly, the Chaco, Gonzalo Pizarro, Cascales and Lago Agrio cantons.
“Since the San Rafael waterfall disappeared, we have felt the blow and it was finished off with the collapse of the highway. We received at least 11,000 tourists who promoted the economic development of these towns,” said Byron Herrera, president of Gonzalo Pizarro’s tourism service providers.
They hope to take advantage of the misfortune and destruction left by the sinkhole and are already thinking of turning the place into a tourist attraction.
The mayor of Chaco, Javier Chávez, and the prefect of Sucumbíos, Amado Chávez, have sent heavy machinery to support the minga, but they have done it personally with their own resources, since, by not having a road emergency declaration, they cannot dispose of machinery or public resources, they indicated.
Chilla canton declared an emergency because its roads were destroyed by winter
Faced with the collapse of the Quito-Lago Agrio highway, the Government announced the construction of a 10-kilometre provisional variant through the upper part of the Reventador volcano and a definitive variant through the upper Coca, but neither of the two works has begun.
The Quito-Chaco-Lago Agrio route is the closest with a distance of 250 kilometers, while the alternate routes through which there is now mobilization are longer.
The Quito-Baeza-Loreto-Coca-Lago Agrio is 380 kilometers long and the Julio Andrade (Tulcán canton)-La Bonita-Lago Agrio is approximately 406 kilometers long. (I)
Source: Eluniverso
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