It's back to business as normal on the busy Morogoro-Dodoma highway in Tanzania.
On Monday, a bridge collapsed due to heavy rain bringing to a standstill transport and disrupting movement of goods and people from Rwanda to Tanzania. The damaged road is the main route used for goods coming to Rwanda from Tanzania's Dar es Salaam port.
More than 90 percent of Rwanda's goods pass through Dar port as going through another highway passing through the southerly Iringa would add about 304 extra kilometers, time and cost.
Following the collapse, the government of Tanzania hastily heavy equipment and machinery to the site in an effort to quickly restore normal transport operations.
Speaking from the site on Tuesday, Eng Isack Kamwelwe, Tanzania's Minister of Works, Transport and Communication, noted that they were going to put two large culverts, three meters in diameter each, so that a lot of water can go underneath without wrecking the bridge anymore.
On Wednesday night business resumed much to the delight of truckers who had been stranded at the location since Monday and incurring losses.
On Thursday Morning, Yusuf Rutayisire, a Rwandan heavy truck driver, who was enroute to Dar to pick a consignment of cement with his 32 tonne truck and among the first people to arrive at the broken bridge on Monday, told Rwanda’s NewTimes that he was able to leave the area around 9pm on Wednesday.
“The road bridge has not been fully restored but we were able to move, thanks to the great effort put in by authorities here. Yesterday afternoon, the Prime Minister also arrived at the scene and held a meeting with people including all of us stranded drivers and assured us that they were going to call in soldiers from Dodoma and Morogoro to help.”
Rain-triggered disasters, including flash floods and landslides, have affected many people across east Africa in recent weeks.
In Rwanda, heavy rains on Sunday and Monday killed one person in Ndera Sector, Gasabo District and injured 11 others and infrastructure was damaged.
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