Like the saying goes: September showers bring October...sinkholes.
© Alberto Font/The Tico Times
The rainy season finally started in earnest in these last few weeks and the arrival of heavy rains has municipal authorities scrambling to address the flooding and sinkholes that have become a seasonal headache for drivers and pedestrians alike. The National Meteorological Institute announced Monday that
heavy rains were expected this week and the next for the Central Valley and the Pacific coast.
The latest sinkhole to appear this year was a 6-meter wide, 11-meter deep sinkhole that opened up over the weekend on the street near the Transportes Costarricenses Panameños bus station in Plaza Víquez. City workers started repairing the gaping hole that opened between Avenue 20 and 5th Street on Tuesday.
The
Tico Times was not able to reach San José Public Services Director Marco Corrales for comment after several unanswered calls to his cellphone, but the Municipality of San José
released a brief statement explaining that the aging sewer infrastructure and the heavy weight of vehicles passing over the high traffic stretch of road all contributed to the hole that opened over the weekend.
News website CRHoy.com reported that it would take
between four and six weeks to complete the repairs to the busy road. Corrales told the news website that the sinkhole was on the municipality's list of pending repairs before Mother Nature forced it to the top of the list. Corrales said that the repairs could cost as much as ₡5 million, or roughly $9,400.
Aging infrastructure, lacking maintenance and trash that blocks drains and backs up sewers caused another sight last month. On Sept. 25, a sudden downpour
flooded San José's Chinatown when a sewer line backed up.
Sinkholes and flooding are a pain, but there is a silver lining: memes.
© The Tico Times
Comment: According to this report from the NOAA, the 1997/98 El Niño, was one of the most significant climatic events of the century, and produced extreme weather worldwide. During this El Niño, temperature and precipitation records were broken across the United States. Many areas suffered heavy flooding, and the U.S. experienced a series of severe tornadoes. Elsewhere around the world, El Niño contributed to major droughts and wildfire in Mexico, Indonesia and Brazil; devastating floods in South America; and massive coral bleaching from Panama to Africa to Australia's Great Barrier Reef.