Pasig road closed due to cracks

MANILA, Philippines — The Pasig government closed a section of a road in the Ortigas business district after cracks were discovered on Sunday night following heavy rains.

Mayor Vico Sotto said city engineers coordinated with Ortigas Land, Manila Water, Manila Electric Co. and barangay officials to determine what caused the cracks between a construction site and a condominium building along Topaz Road in San Antonio village.

The cracks, said to have stretched up to 70 meters long and with crevices up to 20 inches wide, were found at around 6 p.m. The segment of the road has since been closed to motorists.

Based on the initial assessment of the city engineer’s office, a defective old drainage system caused the road to crack.

The city’s Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Office informed the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology (Phivolcs) regarding the matter to find out whether the cracks had been caused by seismic activity.

Science and Technology Undersecretary Renato Solidum Jr., who heads the Phivolcs, dismissed the possibility of the cracks being caused by seismic activity, saying there are no fault lines in Pasig.

“If that’s a fault line and the fault moved, it should have resulted in a strong temblor,” Solidum said in an interview on dzBB.

After checking photos and footage clips of the damaged road, Solidum said it appeared that the cracks were triggered by the erosion of the road’s sediment seal because of heavy rainfall.

City engineers will determine if there are deformations on the ground near the wall of an excavation at a construction site in the area, according to Solidum.

“If there is none, the cracks were indeed caused by soil erosion,” he said.

“There are no mounded sediments and the pipe was protruding. But we will wait for other observations of the Pasig government. It seems that it’s only an erosion and that’s expected because there are no sediments,” Solidum explained.

The city’s public information office said the local government conducted stop-gap measures on Sunday night.

Jun Sistoso, councilor of Barangay San Antonio, said in a television interview they were looking into possible water leaks and drainage problem as possible reasons why the road cracked.