The N381 between Emmen and Beilen has been open again since 11 p.m. last night. The road was closed almost all day due to an accident between a truck and a car.
“It was a long and tough day,” Lars Nijhoving looks back. On behalf of the province, which manages the N-road, he was in charge almost all day.
When he and colleagues were alerted around 9 a.m. due to a traffic accident, much was still unclear. That impression changed when Nijhoving saw the devastation on the road surface and next to it.
“There was a lot of stuff,” he takes stock. Near Garminge the single-lane road was covered with manure. The animal dung had been given free rein to contaminate the roadside and ditch. An additional setback was the truck’s diesel tank, which was punctured in the accident. Nijhoving: “There was diesel and hydraulic oil everywhere.”
Three recovery companies took care of removing the damaged vehicles. Then the long-term job had to begin: making the road surface passable. This consisted of asphalt repair and removing traces of manure, diesel and oil.
Monastic work, but no less necessary. “The combination of those three things turned the road into an ice rink. The road surface cleaner went over it several times.”
Finally, the soiled verge and ditch had to be cleaned. This happened under the watchful eye of an environmental expert. After the samples taken appeared to be clean and the other repair work had been completed, the road could be definitively reopened.
