Levuka seawall and road repair continues
Maintenance repair work continues on damaged sections of the Levuka seawall, with attention also being directed towards fixing Priority One (P1 or ‘top priority’) areas of the Ovalau Island Circular Road. Fiji Roads Authority (FRA) contracts Fulton Hogan Hiways (FHH) carry out its maintenance programme to provide access in the Central, Eastern and Northern Divisions.
“While sections of the wall between Levuka and Vuma Village have been rebuilt, portions of the damaged seawall on the airport side and beyond have yet to be repaired. A crew of 12 workmen are on site,” said special projects manager for FHH, Eddie de Vries. “There are various P1 areas along the first eight kilometres from Levuka Town towards the airport, as well as from Vuma towards Cawaci,” said Mr de Vries.
“The only road is along the coast, with the mountain directly adjacent to the road. If the P1 areas wash away, we can’t create a temporary access, and traffic movement would become difficult. So we are focussing on fixing these areas of the wall and keeping the road open,” he said.
Some sections of the Circular Road that were sealed in October 2015 were damaged when strong wave surges destroyed parts of the rock and mortar seawall during Tropical Cyclone Winston.
While sections of the wall between Levuka and Vuma Village have been rebuilt, portions of the damaged seawall on the airport side and beyond have yet to be repaired. A crew of 12 workmen are on site Eddie de Vries Fulton Hogan Hiways special projects manager
Mr de Vries said that from the third quarter of 2016 to April 2017, three loads of rock and aggregate have been carted to Ovalau on 1000tonne barges. To date, close to 700 metres of seawall has been reconstructed and 9km of road on the island has been repaired.