The Matanzas Provincial Road Safety Commission confirmed the closure of the Canímar bridge, essential for the Havana-Varadero tourist corridor, due to the risk of imminent collapse. Located at kilometer 119 of the Central Highway, several studies carried out in the last two years warned about the deterioration of the structure.
“14 uprights remain in a critical state, six of them with structural failure, and several displacements have occurred,” reported a joint report from the National Company for Applied Research and the Provincial Directorate of Roads. The bridge, inaugurated in 1931, presented “torsion deformations in the attached railings”.
The inspection detected “advanced corrosion” in the support devices. “Of a total of 12, two of these are displaced 15 millimeters, which causes a lack of stability in the structural whole”, reported the provincial newspaper Gironto which he added that “six secondary beams have a total failure and the upper braces of the main reinforcements are in critical condition”.
For the repair of this road, 45 tons of metal profiles recovered from the deactivation of the Corona hotel in Havana will be used. The essential metal elements for the repair of the bridge have been available since May 2022, but for their transportation it is necessary for the Superior Construction and Assembly Organization to pave the Caoba-Ibarra highway section.
“14 uprights maintain a critical state, six of them with structural failure, and several displacements have occurred,” reported a joint report from the National Company for Applied Research and the Provincial Directorate of Roads
The structural flaws had been evident for years, as two previous studies had found. Even so, the director of the Matanzas Provincial Road Safety Commission, Reynaldo Hernandez Rodriguezassured on September 23 that the Canímar bridge was in good structural condition and was “the object of a defamatory campaign by the enemies of the Cuban revolution.”
Jorge Luis Hernández, general director of the Matanzas Architecture and Engineering Projects Company, explained that the “bridge is in perfect technical condition” and is “a jewel of Cuban engineering.”
The negative diagnoses on Canímar date back to March 2021, when an inspection recommended “intervening” as soon as possible, since the missing pieces in the structure could cause “the failure of some sections and compromise safety.”
The palliative measure of the authorities at that time was to limit circulation to all vehicles whose weight exceeded 3.5 tons; In addition to using as an alternative route the 13-kilometer detour that connects the towns of Ibarra and Caoba, passing through Triunvirato, an option that represents an hour of delay with respect to the usual route. It is also a “quite bumpy” road, according to the newspaper Giron.
The closure of the Canímar bridge is a decision that should have been made years ago. In August 2020, the same organizations that decreed its closure detected the same constructive failures without taking any drastic measures.
“The danger lies in lengthening the maintenance of the bridges and in the poor work of the leaders; the bypass bridge [en Matanzas] is also closed due to lack of budget”, commented reader Jhony Diaz in the article Giron. “Let’s not be blind and open our minds, the Varadero toll, what he collects, is enough to cover the cost of repairing the bridges and highways in Matanzas, but that money goes to the bosses’ pockets.”
Luciano, another user, also argued that “the reality is very clear: the whole country is full of situations like this one with the iron bridge over the Canímar River, on the Central Highway. I don’t want to imagine how the Bacunayagua bridge could be, on the Monumental Highway, which the Canimar River itself passes under. And the bridge over the Almendares River in Vedado?”
The metal structure of the Canímar bridge was defective, so it was ordered “to limit the speed of movement of vehicles as soon as possible”, with which it was intended to reduce the effect of excessive vibrations that could cause “deformations or displacements”.
Periodic conservation actions, since it was inaugurated in 1951, have been insufficient.
In July of this year, the Felipe Pazos bridge, one of the communication routes between Sagua la Grande and the town of Sitiecito, in Villa Clara, collapsed. Declared unstable since the 1970s, the framework presented the same lack of maintenance as Canímar and other Cuban bridges, which end up being abandoned due to the inability of the Government to repair them adequately.
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