Road No 9 offers smooth ride after repairs
Laos's Ministry of Public Works and Transport has confirmed that damaged sections of National Road No 9 in Savannakhet province, which links Thailand and Vietnam, have been repaired. The road is now in good condition along its whole length.
“There are no potholes or any other form of damage,” ministry official Souvanh Sengchamphone said on Monday.
National Road No 9 is 241.6 km long and runs from the provincial capital of Savannakhet, Kaysone Phomvihane district, to the Laos-Vietnam border at Laobao.
The Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) provided grant assistance to improve 58 kilometres of the road.
The JICA grant paid for two sections of the road to be resurfaced with extra layers of asphalt, from the Donghen to Phalan areas and from the Xethamuak area to Phin district.
Repairs to other sections totalling more than 180 km were funded by the government, with some parts being entirely rebuilt.
Road No. 9 has been badly damaged over the past few years because of overloaded trucks. Not only has this road become pitted with potholes, but Road No. 13 North and South has been similarly afflicted.
“Potholes develop after the rainy season, due to sudden bouts of heavy rain and flooding. If there was more water, they would develop even more quickly,” an official from the ministry’s Road Maintenance Fund, Phonthip Thammalath, said.
The smallest cracks that occur in a road surface become potholes in the rainy season and roads deteriorate further because of overloaded trucks.
Technicians check roads and if they find a crack over three millimeters long in the surface of the asphalt, they must repair or seal it instantly.
These small holes occur on roads all around the country due to storm water. Repairs cannot be carried out in a timely fashion because the Road Maintenance Fund does not have a big enough budget.
The Fund needs about 800 billion kip each year to maintain roads throughout the country, but the government can only source 30 to 35 percent of what is required.
When roads are badly damaged, money from the Fund needs to be used early on for repairs, especially when there are landslides and flooding.
