The road along the stretch caved in causing road erosion and blocking the shorter route to these kampongs. At the moment, the villagers have to use another route which is half an hour further away.
Lo said the opening of the road to the public will undoubtedly bring a huge relief for local commuters as well as tour operators.
Pointing out that he is always concerned when road erosions occurred in areas affecting villagers, Lo said it affected their daily lives as some of them would be cut off completely due to the only road they have there.
“Embankment failure needs careful attention as the way water flows under the ground to cause this kind of failure is sometimes very unpredictable. As the project will take some time to complete with detail design considerations, a temporary road diversion was considered the best alternative to overcome immediate needs to relieve the many commuters daily,” he said.
However, Lo pointed out that with an alternative road, the issue of trespassing existing property has to be dealt with first. Thus, the need to demolish two huts to achieve the proposed access and compensation arises. He said he was thankful that though the efforts of Infrastructure development, Dato’ Sri Michael Manyin, the compensation was resolved.
On June 10, Lo said there was the mobilization of equipment to the site and earthworks started the next day where they cut and filled on two hills to allow a wider access for the proposed road diversion. An area was cut and leveled for the relocation of landowners’ huts as part of the negotiated agreement.
He said a five feet wide culvert was laid on June 12 and earthworks continued, with the filling of a slope on the western side of the failed embankment, to widen the access of the proposed diversion.
The whole major earthwork was done three days later and a temporary gravel access has been constructed for motorcycles to use as an immediate relief to them.
“JKR is now waiting for compensation to be disbursed to owners of the affected huts and the relocation of these huts to proceed further. Once relocation exercise is complete, stones as road base will be laid and compacted,” he added.
Lo who is an engineer himself said the recent road collapses in Penrissen and Padawan proved that the relevant authorities need to relook at the construction of road designs to prevent such incidents.
He suggested construction of more small bridges across road sections so that they could have intersecting waterways underneath which give more solid foundation.
Meanwhile, on the Kpg Sadir bridge which collapsed after a lorry drove through it early March this year, Lo said villagers can now use the RM300,000 bailey bridge which was constructed and competed two weeks ago.
The collapse of the bridge had affected 2,000 villagers and road users in Jalan Padawan Ulu.
Supp News: June 20, 2015
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