Cape Town -
A major road linking Ashton and Swellendam will be closed for at least two weeks after a large section collapsed on Monday, the department of Transport and Public Works said on Tuesday.
The R60 between Ashton and Swellendam was closed after a section about 22km from Swellendam collapsed, the department’s Al-Ameen Kafaar said.
“The road will be closed until we have assessed the extent of the damage and determined what remedies will be needed to make it safe for travelling again,” Kafaar said.
She said heavy rains at the weekend and the high seasonal rains this year were to blame.
A complete assessment and remedial plan will be completed by Friday, Kafaar said.
Some Swellendam residents raised concerns about the safety of alternative routes that they would now have to use.
Dee Schutte, a resident and owner of vegetable store Seon Eco Centre in Swellendam, had to turn around and use a gravel road near Bruintjiesfontein as an alternative route.
“The alternative routes like this gravel one are dangerous to drive on and people have been robbed and assaulted,” she said. “This is a great inconvenience for me because I can’t get to my house nor my business like I normally do. It is terrible,” Schutte said.
Asked how the road closure would affect her business, she said: “I have a big market fair coming up at the end of this month and with the road now closed it means that my customers from other areas will have to use shoddy alternative routes, which could discourage them from attending the fair.
“The delivery of goods has also been halted because it is dangerous for trucks to travel on gravel roads, and it will cost me more to deliver goods if my trucks used tarred alternative routes.”
Another resident and owner of a corn farm right next to the collapsed section of the road, Andre Joubert, said it collapsed due to the heavy rains at the weekend.
“On Sunday afternoon I was driving here and I saw that a small part of the road had a big crack in it. The road was fine to drive on but you could feel that there was a slight dip,” he said.
He said his farming activities are not seriously affected because he has bakkies to make deliveries.
No injuries were reported.
Traffic to Swellendam was diverted to the Bonnievale Road in Bonnievale. Motorists were advised to take the R62 through Montagu to Barrydale and from Barrydale through the Tradouw Pass to the N2 freeway.
Cape Times