“Yesterday on the left bank of the Mtkvari River, near the Gagra restaurant, we noticed specific cracks on the road surface. We immediately made a decision, and the municipality partially restricted traffic in this specific area, which essentially helped us avoid hazard,” Deputy Mayor of Tbilisi, Irakli Bendeliani, told journalists.

According to him, they simultaneously began 24-hour monitoring and observation.

“Today the situation has somewhat worsened. In this specific location, a certain mass of earth collapsed. According to preliminary data, the Mtkvari River washed out the foundation of the supporting wall, which caused the road to cave in. The relevant municipal services are mobilized. We have begun working in a 24-hour regime to ensure timely restoration. As I mentioned, all city hall services will be engaged around the clock to complete the works, and eliminate the damage as soon as possible.

Yesterday, as soon as we noticed the cracks during the day, we began monitoring. Simultaneously, for safety reasons, we started restricting access to the dangerous area, both for pedestrian and vehicle traffic lanes. I emphasize again that yesterday’s preventive measures were effective and helped us avoid hazards. As you can see, nobody was travelling in this section.

We are simultaneously planning preventive measures, we are in the planning process to begin restoration work as soon as possible, within the coming hours. We regularly conduct monitoring, and during one such monitoring – yesterday morning – as soon as cracks appeared, we identified all this during monitoring and implemented the measures I mentioned. This was discovered as a result of inspection,” stated Irakli Bendeliani.

Additionally, as Bendeliani noted, traffic will be restricted on one more lane.

“Furthermore, we will make traffic one-directional. This means it will be possible to travel in both directions using two lanes each,” Bendeliani added.