SANTO DOMINGO.- “The tragic accident that occurred Saturday afternoon at the intersection of 27 de Febrero Avenue and Máximo Gómez, which left 9 dead, inexorably reflects a design flaw, which was unfortunately pointed out more than 25 years ago by several engineers without any response from the authorities,” stated Luis Adolfo Abbott Zorrilla, structural consultant and designer, yesterday.
The professor also explained, through his Instagram social network, that, due to the cohesion present in the limestone rock typical of the fault site, the wall did not present significant soil thrusts and that water thrusts were ignored by relying on a very deficient drainage system, calculated for low millimeter rainfall.
“Consequently, it was designed as a screen without any lateral capacity, and therefore did not have the necessary resistance installed to transmit the demand of the rainwater thrust to which it was subjected,” he said.
Source: Labbottz_structures.
The professional's proposal adds to the recommendation made by the Dominican College of Engineers, Architects and Surveyors (CODIA), in 1999, when a similar event occurred in that place, who advised at that time the demolition of the structure, because "it was eroded at its bases by the waters.".
The recommendations at that time were made after an evaluation led by a committee made up of civil engineers Luis Carpio Montás, expert in soil mechanics; Alexander Holsteinson, structural engineer; Héctor Rodríguez Morillo, specialist in Hydrology; José Bautista Perdomo, environmentalist; José M. Aybar, sanitary engineer; Antonio Cocco Quezada, meteorologist, Osiris de León, geological engineer and Erwin Cott Crews, architect.
In its considerations, the evaluation committee estimated that the solution given to the problem by the authorities “is not the most appropriate and effective and considered it necessary to completely replace the affected wall in order to guarantee citizens a risk-free transit.
24 years later the predictions came true, leaving a toll of 9 victims whom life placed in the aforementioned traffic, at a time when the Dominican capital was registering copious rainfall, knocking down part of the overpass, whose slabs impacted several vehicles that left the regrettable toll.
Architect Ernesto Contreras maintained that the collapse had already occurred during the administration of engineer Jimmy Durán in 1996, who initiated the project. Durán was later replaced by Diandino Peña, and it was during Peña's tenure that those same walls collapsed, or rather, tilted due to the effects of the rains. "They shored it up, reinforced it, and repositioned the wall," he said.
"The cause was clearly the weaknesses in the pre-investment studies of the project and the profile of the Miraflores Extension, the immediate surroundings of the project. Specifically, the geotechnical, topographic, and hydrological studies of the area; that is, from the behavior, geometry, and consistency of the soils, to their slopes or contour lines and the stormwater drainage of the area, where a good part of said stormwater drainage from curbs and streets is directed towards 27 de Febrero Avenue, whose notable slope goes towards Máximo Gómez," he explained.
The architect added that "these weaknesses in the studies, the groundwork for the site and design of this complex road project, and the stormwater drainage system, continue to have a negative impact on people's lives and public property. Water from the area pooled again at the same point, pounding between the edge of the walls and the pavement until it penetrated the soil, which, although mostly composed of metamorphic limestone, exerted lateral pressure that weakened the foundations and the wall's containment capacity, once again presenting us with a 'déjà vu' in public policy.".
An architect among the victims
One of the nine victims of the collapse at the underpass of Avenida 27 de Febrero and Máximo Gómez had been married for less than two months and had plans to move to France. She was 31-year-old architect Solange María Méndez, who was crushed along with her father, Omar Alejandro Méndez, in one of the vehicles traveling in the area.
Metro extends hours
Starting this Monday, the service hours of the Santo Domingo Metro and the Metropolitan Office of Bus Services (OMSA) will be extended while the intervention operations remain in the aforementioned overpass.
The Santo Domingo Metro will be operating from 6:00 a.m. to 12:00 midnight, while OMSA will provide services from 6:00 a.m. to 11:00 p.m.
Three days of national mourning
President Luis Abinader issued decree 586-23 yesterday, Sunday, declaring three days of official mourning for the deaths caused by the floods in the country, which so far have unofficially reached 30.
The official mourning days are November 20, 21, and 22 of this year.
“Three days of official mourning are declared throughout the territory of the Dominican Republic, starting from the date of this decree and corresponding, therefore, to the days of November 20, 21 and 22 of this year, due to the fatalities resulting from the passage of the recent atmospheric phenomenon through the country,” says Article 1 of the presidential decree.
