Some 200 crossings through the Corinth Canal have been recorded since it reopened on July 4. The managing company of the Canal sees the number of crossings to have reached over 6,500 by October.
The Canal reopened after substantial landslides over the last couple of years and the completion of the first part of repair works that followed, Corinth Canal SA General Director Georgios Zouglis told news agency amna on Saturday.
“We opened with absolute safety, and we are once again providing integrated, upgraded and reliable services to our customers,” Zouglis added
Crossings are expected to reach 6,500 by October.
Aim is that the Corinth Canal to become a model center of global navigation, on a par with global sea routes standards. At the same time, moves are being made for the tourism development of the broader area, in view of a sustainable growth of the local community.
Speaking about the progress of repair works, Zouglis said that “the solution that was given was a difficult and complex restoration project that includes the easing of the slopes at the point where the landslides appeared. Huge volumes of soil were removed, so as to avoid another case of collapse.”
He pointed out that “this project will be carried out in a length of one kilometer and concerns the area in which 95% of the small or large landslides and problems we have had in the canal have been observed in the last 20 years.”
The second phase of the project includes “harbor work, i.e. supporting the base of the slopes, so as to prevent erosion from the base of the slopes in the future. Work will be done in the sea, a wall will be built, while at the same time work will be completed on the slopes that may experience landslides in the future.”
According to Zouglis: “In collaboration with the Ministry of Infrastructure and the Superfund, studies are being carried out for the entire length of the canal, in order to identify all the points that may appear in the future, so as to prevent that there will be no further interruption of transit in the future”.
Stressing that the studies are already being completed, he added “in 2024, with the delivery of the main section of one kilometer, the machines will have already entered the points where it will be detected that there is any problem and the corresponding projects will be auctioned, which will also act as amortization mechanisms for all possible future risks.
On July 1, Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis announced that the Corinth Canal will reopen on July 4 for three months, while it would close again for further repair work over the winter months, The Canal would open again for four months in summer 2023.
