Horizons 101 restoration work ahead of schedule

“WE are four days ahead of schedule.”

Horizons 101 Project Director Engr. Oscar Umali said repair work was half way done in the site where a slope protection wall of the condominium project collapsed last month.

“We are already on day 34 of the 67-day 7-step restoration work,” Umali told Cebu reporters who were shown around the work site along General Maxilom Avenue yesterday.

The Office of the Building Official in Cebu City earlier issued a cease-and-desist order against further work by the developer Taft Property after the April 10 accident, which affected eight to ten houses whose occupants had to evacuate.Work will resume only after repairs are completed.

“We’re looking at the first week of June to finish back filling and hoping to complete the concrete pathway (of the wall’s adjacent residences),” Umali said

As of yesterday, 22 of the total 26 soldier piles were installed. The rest will be put up by Friday.

No construction work has started yet on the 55-storey tower. The wall that partly collapsed was undertaken by a excavation contractor at the perimeter of the work site.

Soldier piles, which are large beams normally used in dams and big infrastructure projects, were erected to fortify the redesigned retaining wall.

These mitigating efforts,described as an “overkill”, were taken to “make sure the community here is safe” and that this (collapse) won’t happen again” said Umali.

Finished ahead of the soldier piles was the ‘shotcrete”, or a concrete wall, applied through a pressurized pump and reinforced with mesh wire and anchored by tendons, said Umaili.

“After completing this whole system, we are going to request for the permit to immediately start building the foundation ,” Umali said./Correspondent Jessa J. Agua