People were astounded to hear that workers on the high-speed-train line outside Loja managed to seriously weaken a standard railway bridge during blasting operations. The incident closed the line down initially and then reduced trains to a 30-kph speed limit over the damaged bridge. A total of 4,000 passengers were affected over the first five days.

As it was, people from two satellite towns of Loja (Venta del Rayo and Cuesta Blanca) weren’t particularly happy with the construction work anyway, especially the constant transit of heavy lorries, both for the noise and dust created, as well as damage to road surfaces. These complaints were forwarded to a area representative of the Central Government, Sebastian Pérez, when he visited the Loja Town Hall to speak with the Mayor over the blasting incident.

The Mayor confirmed that the Lojareños are pretty keen for the high-speed-line work to be completed, but that they had to respect the complaints from the locals – omelets and broken eggs come to mind.

As for the affected bridge, The construction company has begun an investigation into the incident. Locals are also worried about the water table (underground galleries) where the blasting has been taking place, but the company, Adif, assured the Loja Councillor for the Environment that no damage would be caused to these valuable underground water resources, but the councillor was not convinced, “They had also promised by that there would be only controlled blasting, and look what happened,” he commented.

(News: Loja, Poniente de Granada, Granada, Andalucia)