Engineer Lucio Cáceres, a member of the Colorado Party, was Minister of Transportation and Public Works (MTOP) between March 1, 1995 and July 15, 2004, meaning that he was in charge of the portfolio at the time the current form of the undulating bridge of La Barra de Maldonado was built (completed in 1999) and today is at risk of succumbing.
Cáceres has been talking to the media for weeks about what his position was at the time the structure was built, and has assured that he did not want it to be erected in that locationbut “but the vast majority of the residents” favored a twin structure to the Leonel Viera bridge, inaugurated in the 1960s.
The structure affected and at risk of collapse is the part built in 1999, when Cáceres was in charge of the MTOP. “For several days (the structure of the bridge) it dropped one centimeter at a time, but now there was a push in which it lost 15 centimeters in a single day,” warned the hierarch in mid-October in an interview with Channel 5. For the engineer, the main cause of structural problems is the passage of heavy vehicles, some of which are not authorized to cross it. There has been a dramatic increase in extremely heavy trucks as a result of real estate development in the area across the bridge. “Heavy vehicles that passed loaded, so on the way back (over the other bridge) the impact was less,” he remarked.
Cáceres is now an advisor to the mayor of Maldonado, Enrique Antía, in the process of repairing the bridge. “When my cousin (Enrique Antía) called me, how could I not help him. The mayor acted in a highly efficient way because the issue appeared in one day, tragedy, the next day a solution, meeting with those who could solve it and three days later they were already installed in the place working”, he indicated about his hiring by the mayor to this advice.
“We are going to rescue the bridge, God willing, we are going to rescue it. Yesterday we did a big part of the rescue and today we are doing the other three parts,” he stated.
And the responsibilities?
According to the analysis, the issue is the breakage of the cables that tighten the structure and allow it to support its weight, added Cáceres in more recent statements. He called wavy bridges “a mess” from the road point of view because, for example, if a truck that goes ahead drops an object on the bridge, a car that comes behind will have difficulty seeing ahead when going up the curve and then to slow down by the attraction of the descent.
The expert recalled that the Civil Code indicates responsibilities during the first 10 years of a work, and the bridge is already 23 years old. Of course, he clarified thatThe work was carried out by a company “who contracts a lot with the State, and the construction of bridges was not his specialty”.
“Perhaps the most suitable company was not chosen to do that type of work; that bridge is very particular, I don’t know if there is another one in the world”, he considered.
