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Rumbidzayi Zinyuke
Manicaland Bureau
One person died this morning after a car fell through a section of the newly-repaired Skyline-Chimanimani Road which gave in to the pressure of heavy rains and collapsed.
The collapsed section of the road between Skyline and Charter (just before Nyahode bridge) was part of the road restored by Masimba Construction after Cyclone Idai destroyed roads and bridges in Chimanimani and Chipinge.
The country has been receiving heavy rains over the last month resulting in flooding and destruction of infrastructure.
According to Manicaland provincial roads Engineer Atherton Zindoga, due to the heavy rains being recorded in Chimanimani, debris had clogged a culvert on the road which changed the course of the water.
“When the water changed course it put pressure on the road and it collapsed. Unfortunately a car fell through when the road collapsed and killed the occupant. It is sad that we lost a human life in this calamity,” he said.
He said a team had been on site to assess the damage and come up with a detour to allow traffic to continue flowing in and out of Chimanimani.
Eng Zindoga said they were hoping to avoid the long detour which was used during the initial road repair works and a shorter one would be created.
“We want to avoid the 15km detour we had before so we will have one upstream of the destroyed section that will be only 200 metres long,” he said.
With the rains expected to continue pounding the district, Eng Zindoga said they were scaling up routine maintenance of all the roads to make sure that any blockage is cleared to protect the roads.
Online Reporter