The mayor of Peso da Régua, José Manuel Gonçalves, told Lusa that the intention is to intervene as soon as possible on that road, which connects Mesão Frio and Amarante, warning, however, that it will be an “expensive and time-consuming” project.

“We want to restore normality as quickly as possible, but we are talking about an intervention that is costly from a financial point of view and time-consuming from a physical point of view, due to the size of the wall itself,” he stated.

The avenue was cut off, he explained, for safety reasons after a collapse in the floor and the collapse of the support wall on that avenue located next to the Douro River.

The municipality in the south of the Vila Real district reported today that, due to the collapse of the support wall, it had cut off traffic in both directions on Avenida do Douro, between Rotunda do Marquês and the junction with Rua Augusto Vieira.

On Monday 4 March, the municipality announced that, for security reasons, it closed the avenue, in the direction of Peso da Régua - Mesão Frio.

In a statement, the municipality explained that, following a considerable collapse on the road, work was carried out to check ducts/aqueducts, which confirmed the existence of several anomalies in the rainwater routing infrastructure, some of which are quite deep, which made detection difficult.

“We have been analysing the causes, several causes were identified and yesterday [Monday 4 March] we began to see an even greater collapse, we cut a section of the road in one direction and, last night, there was a collapse of the wall, worsening the situation”, explained José Manuel Gonçalves.

With the closure of the artery, the council presented Rua Augusto Vieira or the road via Cederma as an alternative for light vehicles.

He also informed that heavy vehicles traveling towards Mesão Frio - Régua and Régua - Mesão Frio must do so through Fontelas - Oliveira - Granjão.

Heavy vehicles traveling towards Amarante must opt ​​for the motorway alternative, via the A24 and A4.

The president took the opportunity to remember the Complementary Itinerary 26 (IC26), a route demanded for decades in the region to connect municipalities in this area of ​​the Douro and resolve road constraints, but which never progressed.

“Without a doubt, this situation causes strong constraints on mobility and we will have to greatly restrict traffic”, said the mayor.

José Manuel Gonçalves said he was in contact with Infraestrutura de Portugal (IP), in order to obtain technical and financial support for the intervention.