The bridge over the Ashburton River on State Highway 1 has been closed following structural damage from the recent flooding. This will create network issues in both directions for some days to come as we find alternative routes that are open and usable.
We are currently looking at alternative routes to circumvent Ashburton but flooding is still an issue further inland and many roads impassable. There is at present a single passage operational but this could be closed anytime if the volume of traffic crossing bridges upstream of the major rivers intensifies or it is deemed too dangerous, as there is no road lighting on any of these minor roads and travelling during the hours of darkness will be challenging.
We will continue to update progress as we can, but please remember these circumstances are out of our control and we can only do what we are able to.
The extreme weather event in the South Island, has caused significant flooding, south of Christchurch, resulting in many road closures. This weather is set to continue throughout the day and into tomorrow.
The main outage currently we are faced with is State Highway 1 near Burnham. The road is closed due to flooding, with no available detours at present. Therefore, any of our Ashburton/Timaru services will not being running this morning.
Also, there will be delays with any freight moving to the lower South Island and the West Coast.
We appreciate that this outage will cause significant disruptions for our customers.
Please be assured we will be working hard to streamline the recovery plan as soon as conditions allow us to do so.
If you have any questions, please contact our Zend Customer Services team on 0800 771 747 or solutions@zend.co.nz
We hope to have another update to you later today.
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