In the year 2014, in Dariali Gorge, the river Devdoraki posed threat to human life and traffic movement twice. First in May, and then in August, well over a million cubic meters of mud-slide descended from the glacier, completely engulfed the river Terek ravine and covered the road, as well as its surrounding area. Other than the fact that traffic movement was obstructed on this important international road, there were casualties as well.

Our company was working on the liquidation of disaster aftermath from the very first moment of its occurrence, non-stop, during day and night, as a result of which in both of the cases, the traffic was resumed on the road in the shortest period of time possible.

Overall, the excess material that slid on the road and its adjacent area was cleared; a metal culvert was installed; 150 meters of ballast bed was reinforced; concrete blocks and riprap were used to form a 700-meter-long floodwall in Terek river; in order to protect the hydro power plant located in the ravine, river-bed was altered on a 90-meter distance.

The locals will tell you that this was not the first occurrence on Devdoraki of its kind. In this tough terrain, the mud-slide descending from the glacier has been posing problems for the course of centuries. Upon all, geologists do not exclude the possibility of such disasters in the future either. In case of similar disasters, in order to avoid human casualties, our company is constructing a special structure, an evacuation corridor near Larsi customs checkpoint, as commissioned by the Ministry of Regional Development and Infrastructure of Georgia.

The corridor will be almost 209-meter-long and 2.25-meter-wide and will be built on a 7-12-meter height above the motor road level. The structure will be held in place with reinforced concrete piers, connected to each other with reinforced concrete plates each 40 centimeters thick. The construction will have metal railing and covered with a special net to safeguard against stonefall. Accessing the evacuation corridor will be possible through staircases which are to be positioned in 4 various places. The structure will start out from the Larsi customs checkpoint territory and extend to the Dariali monastery, where special square will be arranged. This very square will afford the possibility to evacuate people using a helicopter.

We started building the evacuation corridor in Larsi in summer of last year. The construction is scheduled to be completed this year. The technical demands of the works, tough terrain and climate are to be taken into consideration in this case as well, but everybody working on the project, all 50 employees and the management of the company are doing their best to complete works in the scheduled timeframe.

The majority of people employed at the site are locals, which in itself is an additional motivator for them, since in case of a disaster, employees of the customs checkpoint, people working on constructions in the adjacent area and those driving on the road are to be safely transported to the evacuation square through this very corridor.