Heavy Rain Washes Away Portion of General Cañas
The heavy rain of yesterday afternoon collapsed a drain ditch and the retaining wall as raging waters gushed onto the General Cañas, the country's busiest highway, damaging some 25 metres of road surface, shutting down two of the three lanes on the highway between Alajuela and San José.

The incident occurred 200 metres west of the Intel plan, just east of the Río Segundo bridge on the highway.

The torrential water deposited everything in its way onto the roadway, which blocked traffic for several hours as heavy machinery had to be brought in to clean up the debris and mud from the road.

The damaged produced at 2:30pm included the raising of asphalt surface from the road, completely destroying 25 metres section of the highway.

Overnight work crews continued the clean up of the roadway and were able to completely open one lane of the highway. Alejandro Molina, director of the Consejo Nacional de Vialidad (Conavi), announced that the road will be completely reopened by Thursday, as the work crews will be working around the clock to repair and pave the road.

However, the work on the retaining wall will take about 15 days, said Molina.

This morning, the Policía de Tránsito (traffic police) were on full staff to control traffic in the area, especially the rush hour traffic into San José between 7:00am and 9:00am.

Authorities are asking for people to take alternate routes to avoid being stuck in traffic. One route is the old road that goes from the Fiesta Casino and the reconnect to the highway at the Firestone, or the road on the south side of the airport that goes into San Antonio de Belén and reconnects to the General Cañas at Cariari.

German Marín, director of the Policía de Tránsito, said that his officers will be redirecting traffic to the alternate routes depending on the traffic flow and is asking drivers to have patience while crews effect the repairs over the next couple of days.

It is yet unknown the cause of the collapse of the retaining wall and where all the water came from. Conavi experts will be investigating the cause, including investigating area industrial plants nearby.