SANTA CRUZ DE TENERIFE, Feb. 19 (EUROPE PRESS) –
The Ministry of Public Works, Transport and Housing of the Government of the Canary Islands began this week the execution of the works on the new pier next to La Bombilla beach, in the municipality of Los Llanos de Aridane, by emergency route, with the aim of facilitate maritime connections between the south of the lava flow left by the volcano’s eruption and the north through the port of Tazacorte.
The work, awarded for a total amount of 1,570,798 euros to the company Dragados SA, will enable a new dock in what is known as Punta del Negro, at the southern end of La Bombilla beach, allowing the embarkation and disembarkation of people and motor vehicles with all the necessary safety conditions, while the roads that were buried by lava are being recovered.
Although the works at Punta del Negro began yesterday due to the accumulation of harmful gases in the vicinity the previous days, the works began at the beginning of this week with the construction of the concrete blocks that will form the future dock. The new jetty will be a total of 40 meters long and five meters wide, built with self-supporting concrete blocks.
These concrete blocks are being built with special molds brought from Fuerteventura in a concrete plant located in the municipality of Mazo. Each block weighs a total of four tons, is 1.66 meters wide and 1.33 meters high. The manufacture of this T-shaped model will allow the work to be carried out quickly and safely, avoiding the formwork process. Once the manufacture of these batches is finished, they will be transferred by road to Punta del Negro for use in the works area.
To facilitate embarkation and disembarkation, the new wharf will have a 35-meter-long ramp attached to the wharf with a 12.5% slope and eight meters wide. This ramp will have a ten meter landing on its surface so that vehicles can make a change of direction. To reach this new port facility, a path of about 50 meters will be built that will connect the La Bombilla road with Punta del Negro, using lateral containment concrete blocks that will be filled with gravel to create a walkable path.
The execution of this work has a forecast of six months, but the final terms will be conditioned by the conditions of the sea and, above all, by the gas emissions from the eruption that are still detected in the area. For this reason, the Ministry has designed an emergency and evacuation plan in case of incidents in coordination with Pevolca.
This plan also provides workers with ERA equipment for assisted breathing, four multigas detection equipment and two CO2 detection equipment that will be active during all the days of execution of this dock with the aim of monitoring the parameters and alerting the workers if air quality became unfavourable.
The Ministry’s technicians, after studying several alternatives, have opted for locating the new facility in Punta del Negro, just one kilometer from Puerto Naos, considering that this area meets the best conditions for locating a small sheltered dock of the currents and with an easy access to the highways of the area that have not been affected by the eruption.
The construction of this new wharf comes after the Pevolca management attributed this commission to the Ministry of Public Works, Transport and Housing with the aim of creating a small wharf that allows both residents and workers and farmers who live in the northern area of the Aridane Valley, travel by sea to the Puerto Naos area to work. This action seeks to avoid the current road route that involves crossing half the island and which takes about an hour and a half each way.
