In pictures: This is how the work progresses on the sinking in Villa Nueva

Workers from the Road Conservation Execution Unit (Covial) continued this Saturday, June 25, with the work to rehabilitate the passage at kilometer 15.5 of the CA-9 Sur highway, better known as the Pacific route, in Villa Nueva.

A group of engineers carried out excavations to locate the water collectors that pass through the sector and determine their level of damage. They undertook these works after the rains washed away the mudcrete that they initially placed to fill in the sinkhole that formed on the road on June 14.

President Alejandro Giammattei declared on Friday June 24 that, due to tectonic faults, it will be "difficult" to rehabilitate this section of CA-9 South.

“We are going to have to make a collector of more or less a kilometer to reach the Platanitos River” and evacuate the waters, said the president, accepting that it is a problem that is “out of control” due to the tectonic faults of the place.

“There is no longer going to be a highway there, there is going to be a bridge, because the fault is going to continue to open as many times as they are,” added Giammattei.

To allow vehicular traffic again, the president announced that the government will have to purchase new bridges.

“Indeed, two bridges are going to be installed, which are two Acrow-type bridges and we hope to buy them as soon as possible through the Southern Command. They are going to do us the favor of transferring them to the country so that from the moment they come to Guatemala, in no more than a week, they are installed,” he said.

The president also stressed that, while the road is being restored, the state authorities are in talks with the owners of the VAS (Vía Alterna del Sur) highway, so that they "lower the price" of the passage up to 50 percent of the current rate. 

This Saturday marks the eleventh day since the CA-9 South was obstructed. In the midst of contradictions regarding the solution between the authorities, civil organizations took criminal action against the Ministry of Communications (CIV) for damage to some routes in the country.