Saudi Gazette report

ABHA — Under the directives from Asir Emir Prince Faisal Bin Khalid, work on the Dila Aqaba has been extended by 10 more days to give enough time to the executing company to remove the threat of falling rocks from the mountainous road, which will link Asir with Jazan and Makkah.

The company said the 10 days given to it earlier were not enough to complete the work, which is often interrupted by passing school buses, ambulances and other emergency vehicles.

According to the contracting company, these interruptions continued up to eight hours a day. “This has put more pressure on the workers and caused the delay in the timely execution of the project,” it said. The stretch of road, from which the rocks are being removed, is 110 meters high and 600 meters long on the Dila mountain.

The company said it was instructed to keep the road open for three hours in the morning and three more hours in the afternoon for the school buses to pass.

It, however, said the closure time in fact was much more than this because they had to open the road for ambulances and army cars.

“These repeated closures have delayed us from completing our work on time so we asked for extra days to complete the work,” it added.