Minister: Reconstruction of railway in flooded area goes ahead of schedule

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YEREVAN, June 14. /ARKA/. The reconstruction of the flood-damaged railway in northeastern Armenia that connects the country with Georgia goes ahead of the schedule, the country’s Minister of Territorial Development and Administration Gnel Sanosyan said on Friday./pp “Perhaps we’ll be able to resume traffic earlier than we expected,” he said during a government session./pp

He also added that limited use of the railway will be possible in the next few days./pp

Armenia’s Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan stated earlier that the South Caucasus Railway, the Russian operator of Armenia’s railways, is putting great efforts into resuming the traffic./pp

Heavy rains flooded Armenia’s northeastern provinces Lori and Tavush on 25 and 26 May, causing the Debed, Aghstev, and Tashir rivers to overflow their banks. As a result, portions of the railway and the freeway connecting Armenia with Georgia were destroyed. So far, the death toll stands at 4, and 443 individuals have been evacuated from the flooded area. A total of 300 million drams has been allocated for recovery efforts./p