This is how the reconstruction of infrastructure in Valencia after DANA is progressing: Óscar Puente’s team works “day and night” for its recovery

A week after DANA, which devastated more than 25% of the province of Valencia, work to recover infrastructure continues without rest. The storm left more than 80 kilometers of roads and Cercanías “destroyed” and “serious damage” to the High Speed ​​line, but since the storm subsided the team from the Ministry of Transport and Sustainable Mobility has been working “day and night” to try to restore normality to the region as soon as possible.

Minister Óscar Puente has recognized the enormous work being carried out by the workers who are rebuilding the infrastructure and constantly updates their status on his social networks and through all official channels. A complicated task that will involve an investment of 2.6 billion euros and for which Transport and the Generalitat Valenciana have agreed on an emergency plan.

Regarding progress in road reconstruction, it must be remembered that The A-7 is the highway that suffered the most damage along about 15 kilometers, both on the Valencia bypass and especially at Quart de Poblet and up to the town of Silla. “The most critical point” was the day after the DANA in the collapsed viaduct in the Quart de Poblet area, on the Valencia ring road, through which some 100,000 vehicles circulate a day. This fact caused a total cutoff of movements on the A-7, to and from the south, between the A-3 junction and the town of Silla.

A week later, the ministry has announced that it has already enabled all the lanes of the V-30, V-31, A-3 and the A-7 north of the A-3 and is advancing the reconstruction work of the N-330, the N-322 and the A-7. In the latter, a provisional diversion from the A-7 is being built, with speed limitations, to allow movements with the A-3.

“What we are doing at this point is building a bypass based on caissons. This will allow us to put the A-7 into service in its entirety, although in that small section, until the reconstruction of the viaduct, there will be a speed reduction to 40km /h” explained Óscar Puente a few days ago, while adding that 70 trucks, 3 bulldozers, 3 backhoes, 2 front loaders, 3 cranes, 4 compactor rollers, 1 concreting pump and 40 people plus a driver for each machine and truck They are responsible for this task.

This Tuesday, the concreting is already underway for the subsequent installation of the 250 frames that will make up the provisional south bypass of the A-7. “The forecast is that we will spend the next 3 days and nights on this task,” the minister highlighted.

Situation in Cercanías

A week ago, the situation at Cercanías Valencia was “very serious.” Of the city’s 5 lines, C-1 (Valencia Nord-Gandía), C-2 (Valencia Nord-Moixent) and C-3 (Valencia Nord-Utiel) were “very damaged” in many points, with “disappearance platform”, roads and the infrastructure itself. Lines C-5 (Valencia Nord-Caudiel) and C-6 (Valencia Nord-Castelló) were able to be put into circulation, despite the damage.

Given this panorama, seven days after the floods, Lines C6 and C5 are now operating normally and with capacity reinforcement, while the cleaning and removal of vehicles from the tracks and stations of C1, C2 and C3 are accelerated. So far, a total of 300 cars have been removed from the stations and tracks.

“I leave some good news: The C1 and C2 stations in general look very good. I see a special shine in the eyes of the Adif workers that leads me to think that we are going to move forward sooner than we thought,” Puente shared on his X account.

The Ministry of Transport has already carried out operational evaluations of the state of the infrastructure: C1 and C2 are damaged, but “they are better than expected”, which allows them to be put into operation in a reasonable time, according to Puente. However, he insists that The C3 situation “is very complicated”highlighting the state of the Cheste viaduct.

Advances in High Speed

Finally, the Adif team is making progress in the reconstruction work of high-speed infrastructure between Madrid and Valencia. Specifically, In the Chiva tunnel, platform formation work has already started at both mouths and the interior of it, once the entire track has been raised, almost all of the ballast has been removed and the esplanade on both tracks has been prepared.

For its part, The Torrent tunnel has completely drainedprogress is being made in cleaning the mud and mud in its lowest areas. Manual cleaning has been carried out to avoid clogging the drains in order to begin “shortly” cleaning with the help of auxiliary machinery. Subsequently, all signaling systems, track circuits, telecommunications, etc. will be reviewed. “No relevant damage has been found at the moment,” says Transportes.

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