In June one of the main routes that crosses Costa Rica from North to South, from Nicaragua to Panama collapsed due to a humongus hole. A crater, if you like, which our Government simply called a "slumping" ("hundimiento"). I'd call it a slumping if the asphalt would have presented a dent, you know, like a smooth, little, shallow lowering, and definitively no breaking on the asphalt cover. This you see in the picture - and that's not a photoshopped picture, that's the actual freaking hole - is a HOLE. A car falls into it and it comes out in China. When it happened traffic stopped and went impossible for days. People commuting got off the busses and started walking and did so for several kilometers because due to the way the road is built there are few branching roads, thus getting on another bus going to where they wanted to go is pretty much... out of question. Oh, by the way, this happened on the Interamerican Route, which is the one that connects the whole American Continent.
To fix this situation, the Transport and Public Roads' Ministry (MOPT, for it's Spanish abreviation) - which is currently being questioned for awarding many contracts for bailey bridges from a Brit company that has been accused of bribing Governments (and at the time of the awarding of contracts and licitations other companies presented better offers than this company...) - put a bailey bridge on top of it while the "slumping" was dealt with. Two days agon. however, a crane passed over the bridge and it collapsed underneath it. You see, the crane weights 50 tons, and the bridge can only hold 40 tons. Not like anyone knew about it, because there are no signs warning you about that.
Sadly there was too many people on the road at that time - for it is a very busy road, as most Intercontinental Routes are - so the MOPT couldn't do what it did some 4 years ago when an old, rackety bridge collapsed under a bus and people died, which is, they rushed to place signs warning about the fragility of the bridge AFTER the damage was done. As expected all news broadcasters went out and each of them reported the same: "No, there was no way for the crane driver to know that they shouldn't pass over the bridge because the bridge would collapse, because there's not a single sign warning about it". The road had to be closed, the traffic diverted and sensitive branches closed - like the one I usually take when I go on this route (my route home or to the office changes depending on whatever whims I have. I usually don't know which route I'll take until I get to the crossroads). Two days ago I actually took this route and had to open myself a brand new route, one I had never taken before, by car. The usually 20 minute drive swelled into a solid 2 hour drive.
Naturally as I've got home I put on the news to know what the hell was going on. Traffic agents were talking about fining the crane company because they should have know that they are not allowed to transit on that road. By yesterday the MOPT got emboldened and went on saying that they would make the crane company pay, that they drove the crane with no permits for it (really?), that they broke the law and would make them pay for the bridge. Furthermore, a spokesperson even said - on National Television - that they would also sue the crane company for the damage dealt to the users, all those who had to spend more money on gas due to the traffic jams, the detours and also lost appointments due to it. Well, that's a very, very brave load of shit. Is the MOPT going to forward me then that money? Of course they won't. So, will they invest that money efficiently on improving of roads for the affected areas? Not at all. If they actually go through with this shenanigan and get the money, they'll use it on corrupt stuff. Fund political campaigns, pay favors, use it to set up new "licitations" for their friends.
Costa Rica has more damaged bridges than what you care to count. Over this very Interamerican Route there are bridges so rickety only Chuck Norris or Indiana Jones would venture crossing them. On this very tract of the road there's a bridge with a serious structural problems that hasn't been properly addressed for over... three or four years now? Millions have been spent, but the bridge is only deteriorating more. But in the meantime politicians make friends and family rich awarding them millionaire contracts to fix roads or make them, regardless of the lack of actual capability or the poor quality of the job done. They receive "discretional donations" from China, which they spend on publicity, demand austerity from the public sector while directors and politicians gloat on exceedingly expensive lunches, or use official jets to jump home for a passport. Use money for building social homes on hosting parties and paying musicians. And all the while, they crassly neglect their jobs.
No roads are fixed, no signs are put, no bridges are replaced, no schools are built, no hospitals are built, fixed or properly stocked. But when their negligence causes problems, their solution is the bully-solution: shout louder than others, and try to fake the situation, pretend they did all they had to by rushing in 24 hours with what had to be done months, years ago.
People if THIS is the happiest country in the world (with a Gini index over 0,5, which means that the gap between those who have more and those who have less is rather pronounced), they I can only feel sorry for the rest of the world.
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