Recent heavy snowfalls did not surprise road workers

The recent abundant snowfalls did not take the road workers and specialised services unawares, people in charge from the Chisinau City Hall and Ministry of Transport and Road Management (MTGD) told Info-Prim Neo. According to them, at 9.00 am, all the national roads and of the capital were ready for the traffic and the snow removal works started on local roads. At the same time, 18 settlements remained without power. Head of Traffic Administration Division of MTGD, Nicolae Ciobanu stated that once the snow began to fall, hundreds of road workers with all the snow removal equipment were sent to handle the streets. Thanks to their and Road Police’s activity, traffic jams were avoided. In the morning, 330 road workers and 231 units of special equipment were working on the national roads, and later they were to unblock the local roads, Nicolae Ciobanu says. Deputy Head of the Municipal Public Transport Division Alexei Varlan said that starting midnight and to 4.00 am, 80 units of special equipment removed the snow from the capital’s streets, spreading 800 cu. m of antiskid material. All the roads, including those in the suburbs, are usable. At 9.00 am, 275 de trolleybuses, 100 buses and 1690 minibuses have operated on their routes. As Varlan says, traffic-related problems are chiefly coming from inexperienced drivers who do not know how to behave in winter conditions, as well as from owners of luxury cars that are unsatisfied with the scattered gravel, claiming that it deteriorates their tires. Head of the Sanitation Division Ion Botan gave assurances that in the morning all the pavements were cleaned from snow. As he says, about 350 workers and 26 units of special equipment have removed the snow from the pavements. Chisinau Road Police Inspector Ion Roscovanu told Info-Prim Neo that after the snow started to fall, there were registered 3 traffic accidents resulted in 5 injured persons and 45 car collisions. According to forecasters, the layer of snow that fell in the recent hours reached in certain settlements in the south of the country 40-45 cm, in the north – up to 10 cm, while in the centre –20 cm on average.