Miles and miles of traffic jams in the northwest of Hamburg. Experts can’t seem to find the leak.
On Tuesday morning, a burst water pipe supposedly caused long traffic jams at the Kollaustraße in Niendorf – the cause still remains somewhat of a mystery though. By early evening, the employees of Hamburg Wasser still weren’t sure where the water on the road came from. "We couldn’t find any damages on the pipe,“ a spokesperson of the company commented in the afternoon even though experts had been pulling out all the stops in order to solve the problem since the early hours of the morning.
The incident at the Kollaustraße is heavily interfering with the commuter traffic. Instead of the usual three traffic lanes into town, only one can be used at the moment. "At around 1 a.m. this morning, we received a report about a leakage on a transport pipe with a diameter of 40 cm,” says Sabrina Schmalz from Hamburg Wasser. "Traffic is already starting to stagnate from the motorway exit at Schnelsen,“ the traffic control centre reported. Buses were delayed by 50 minutes or more. People on the highway had to be extra patient as well. Between Quickborn and Schnelsen, traffic came to a halt on a stretch of about 6 km.
In order to repair the water damage, the pipe was disconnected and the road was dug up but the experts were not able to locate the leak. In the afternoon, the water line was put back into service again and no further leakage was detected. "We took water samples on site in order to determine where the leaked water from the night before came from,“ says Ms. Schmalz. Results are expected on Wednesday. From 7 a.m. today, the road will be asphalted and temporarily restored again. The road is scheduled to be fully opened again in the late afternoon/early evening.
(Hamburger Abendblatt, 18.01.2017)